Expectations
by rosenritter
Summary: Mycroft receives a tip about John, who has made himself scarce after the Fall. What he finds has the potential to render Sherlock's mission a no-win scenario. Sherlock left something behind before he fell from St. Bart's. It's the one last thing John has left to really live for and the odds are not in his favor. Alpha/Beta/Omegaverse, mpreg, some trigger warnings in certain parts.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** This fic is just for fun, and I don't own anything related to BBC Sherlock. Well, I own the Blu-Rays of both series, but that's not what we're talking about here.

**Note:** This story was originally posted on the Sherlock BBC Kink Meme. It was then cleaned up a bit and posted to Archive of Our Own. I received a couple of private requests to bring the fic here as well, so here we are.

* * *

First, DI Greg Lestrade stumbled out the door of 221B Baker Street. His dazed expression and rubber-kneed walk gradually evened out, and soon he was striding along briskly and muttering curses under his breath.

Second, he popped into an art supply store and bought a large notepad and a thick permanent marker. He kept grumbling profanities as he fumbled for coins, but managed to politely thank the checkout clerk, an old woman in a hand-knitted cat-themed jumper, who might as well have been putting herself up for consideration in the Disapproval Olympics.

Third, he found a convenient CCTV camera at an intersection. He uncapped the marker using his teeth and wrote large, bold words on the pad, which he held up in direct view of the camera.

"**MYCROFT HOLMES, WE NEED TO TALK."**

He looked down at his writing, obviously contemplating something. Once again, he cursed. With a few more strokes from his pen, he added:

"**NOW."**

Several minutes went by. Lestrade huffed and took to the pad again.

"**SHERLOCK-RELATED."**

If he weren't still set on being so upset with "bloody-minded Holmeses", he would have been impressed with the fact that it took a mere thirty seconds for the car with tinted windows to arrive. But his unsettled irritation knew no bounds, so when he took his seat, he settled for merely grumbling, "About bloody time."

* * *

Lestrade sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and scowling a bit at his surroundings. Even if he weren't already feeling thrown for a loop and generally frustrated by the day's events, being blind-folded and led to where he now sat certainly didn't improve his mood. With grey, featureless walls and lighting that fluctuated wildly between too bright and too sparse, the place screamed 'secure location'. It was strange, in a way. Why go to so much secretive effort over a man who had been dead for over five months?

He tried to put it down to damnable Holmes dramatics, but something about it still rubbed him the wrong way.

Speaking of ridiculous dramatics, Lestrade turned his head as he heard the creak of the room's only door swing open. The clack of pristine dress shoes heralded Mycroft Holmes' entrance.

"Ah, Detective Inspector, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?"

Lestrade rolled his eyes. "You saw my note."

"Yes, but I'm afraid you'll have to be a bit more specific. This past year has seen _so_ many things be 'Sherlock-related', as you put it."

"Understatement of the century, that." Lestrade sighed and rubbed the back of his head. "It's, ah. John-related as well."

Mycroft's lips tightened slightly. "Go on."

"I went to Baker Street to check up on Mrs. Hudson and he's -. Look, it's- I mean- You should go visit him," Lestrade finished lamely. Upon seeing Mycroft's thoroughly unimpressed look, he continued, "I'm a Beta, right? This whole… Alpha-Omega business isn't really my field. You're an Alpha, like Sherlock. You figure something out."

"I assure you, his bonding with my brother absolutely does not mean that John can just switch to me. Nor would either of us, John especially, be amenable to-"

"That's not what I meant and you bloody well know it!" Lestrade barked. His voice echoed back to him in the small chamber. He groaned and continued, "Sorry, sorry, didn't mean to yell. But just go visit him, okay? He's back at the flat he used to share with Sherlock, though I probably don't need to tell you that. You'll know exactly what I'm yammering on about the minute you walk through the door."

"I shall take it under consideration," Mycroft said, straightening his lapels. "If that is all, I will be taking my leave. Have a pleasant day, Inspector."

"Yeah, you too."

Again, the sound of Mycroft's shoes echoed throughout the room, followed by the opening and shutting of the door. After several minutes of silence, Lestrade knit his brows together in confused irritation.

"Am I supposed to leave on my own? I don't even know how I got here!"

* * *

"I shall notify you when I am ready to be picked up," Mycroft told his driver as they pulled to a stop in front of 221 Baker Street. Mycroft saw the driver's head nod in agreement through the rearview mirror. "Remain in the area regardless."

He stepped out and squinted in distaste as the glare of the setting sun reflected off the departing car into his eyes. He strode over to the door of 221B and knocked sharply, clearing his throat as he waited. He knocked again and heard Mrs. Hudson's voice call out, "Coming, coming! Just a moment now!"

"May I help yo-," the elderly Beta woman began as she opened the door. Her eyes lit up in recognition. "My goodness, Mycroft Holmes! It certainly has been some time, not since the dreadful-."

"Yes. Quite. If you'll excuse my shortness, Mrs. Hudson, I'm here to pay a visit to Doctor Watson."

Mrs. Hudson nodded understandingly. "Of course," she said, stepping aside and inviting him in. "Though I _do_ so hope it isn't about anything unpleasant. The last thing he needs is a shock or a scare. Not in his condition, the poor dear."

"Condition?" Mycroft asked, but the moment he stepped through the door, he required no more clarification. The scent shot through his nostrils and lodged in his brain immediately, and his mind supplied him with overwhelming instincts immediately:

_Omega. Pregnant. Relative. Protect._

He tried to shake off the call of his baser nature and allow his conscious thoughts to take over again, but it proved a decidedly difficult task with that scent thick in the air of the flat. He made it to the living room, where he saw visual proof of what his nose had already told him.

There was John Watson, looking quite surprised at seeing Mycroft. He had apparently been doing some tidying up (_Nesting_, Mycroft's instincts supplied), and was reaching up to dust the mantelpiece. His shirt – a white button-down with the far too long sleeves rolled up (_Sherlock's?_) - was pulled up slightly, and Mycroft noted the distinct swell in the shorter man's abdomen. Just over five months pregnant, if Mycroft had to guess.

John frowned, turning to Mycroft and pulling his shirt down quickly. Despite that, he didn't appear inclined to deny what he already could tell Mycroft knew as an undeniable fact. His left hand settled on his abdomen, and he rubbed the small bump there in a few protective circles. Even though he cleared his throat, his voice was thick when he spoke. "What're you doing here, Mycroft?"

"At the moment?" Mycroft asked, sitting down as he finally felt the cloud of blind instinct start to clear and the familiar weight of conscious thought settle back down on his shoulders like blocks of lead. "Marveling at my younger brother's ability to leave behind such staggering messes."

A faint, twitching smile played upon John's lips. "Yeah," he sighed. He cleared his throat again and pinned Mycroft with a very intense look. "Shame it seems to be genetic."

Mycroft chose to let that by without comment. He simply asked, "Did he know?"

"No," John said, shaking his head. He sat in his usual chair and his hand lay over his belly, clearly a now firmly-entrenched habit. "I didn't even know until weeks after the funeral. Most pregnant Omegas don't develop the scent change until two or three weeks in, and that's for normal, healthy people who aren't choking on grief."

Mycroft frowned. "You had to have known, or suspected at the very least. You had your heat, after all."

John squinted and rubbed at his temples. "Severe stress can mess with an Omega's heat cycles: delaying it, causing it to come prematurely, rushing it. I was about a week and a half away from my normal heat, and the situation got to me. Yes, it came at me too quickly for me to take my contraceptives, but it was also the shortest heat I've ever had and it wasn't long before I was distracted by things far worse than skipped pills."

"I see," Mycroft said. A long, uncomfortable pause settled over the two for a few moments before it was interrupted by Mrs. Hudson. Her presence took Mycroft slightly by surprise; he'd forgotten the elderly woman was even around, wrapped up as he was in the shock of discovering John's pregnancy.

The old woman carried a tray topped with two cups of tea and the associated cream and sugar, a tall glass of milk, and a plate of small ham sandwiches. "For you, Mycroft," she said, placing one of the cups of tea in front of him. "And for you, dearie," she said to John in a significantly sweeter voice as she set the milk and sandwiches before him.

John chuckled softly. "Mrs. Hudson, you really shouldn't have. You aren't the housekeeper, after all..."

"Ah, ah," Mrs. Hudson tutted, waving a hand in the air. "I won't hear another word. You've barely had a thing to eat all day, for heaven's sake. Your little one needs all the nutrition he or she can get, you know."

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," John said. His voice was quiet and thick with emotion. "I feel terrible imposing on you like this, especially since I had to leave the surgery."

"I just said I wouldn't hear another word, John Watson! Besides, you will be paying me back later by allowing me to spoil that baby rotten." Her eyes turned a little softer, mistier. "You know I… I always did see you and Sherlock like the sons Mr. Hudson and I never had, it being tricky for us Betas and all, and that's probably for the best at this point, what with everything that happened there, and… oh, look at me babble, I must look a sight."

John reached out and laid a hand on her shoulder. He gave her a tight smile and blinked a lot in an attempt to cover up the sudden wateriness in his own eyes. "'Allow' you? I'd be honoured for my child to call you grandmother, Mrs. Hudson."

She pulled a handkerchief from a pocket and dabbed at her eyes. "Oh, _John_," she whispered. She sniffed and laughed nervously as she stood. "I'll just – I'll just be a moment. Need to attend to something."

John and Mycroft tried to give her privacy as she attempted to outrace the sobs.

Mycroft cleared his throat. "I shall ensure that your rent and living expenses are covered as long as necessary."

John gaped at him. "You can't be serious-"

"I am always serious, Doctor Watson," Mycroft said. "It is what my brother would have wanted."

John frowned, looking down at his abdomen, where his thumb rubbed his belly distractedly. "Sherlock always said he didn't want children..."

"Sherlock also always said he would never meet an Omega worth talking to for five minutes, that he would never bond with anyone, and that he would never find anybody whom he considered more important than himself," Mycroft stated. "Your ability to make yourself an exception to all of Sherlock's rules is really quite impressive."

John didn't respond.

"I realize you are a proud man, doctor," Mycroft continued. "And if you no longer wish to receive monetary assistance once the child is born and you are able to return to work, I shall respect your wishes. However, at the moment, allowing you access to the family funds is imperative for the most beneficial outcome for all of us." He leaned forward, eyes grim. "We both know why you're so hesitant to leave the flat for extended periods of time, to muddy what remains of Sherlock's scent. It's not all sentimentality."

John swallowed and finally looked back up to Mycroft, his face drained of a bit of its color and a hint of bleakness in his eyes. "Then you know the rate of miscarriage or stillbirth in pregnant Omegas denied the scent of their bonded Alphas."

"Seventy percent."

"Seventy-five point nine, Mycroft," John whispered. "With increased chances of cot death in infancy."

Mycroft sighed. "I could visit frequently. There have been some studies which indicate the presence of Alpha relatives of the… unavailable Alpha has a positive effect on the survival odds of fetuses in such a situation."

"And just as many studies that claim no change or even a detrimental effect."

Mycroft shut his eyes tight and took in a deep breath. "What do you have to lose?"

"You... you really have to ask?" John laughed, softly and disbelieving. "Absolutely everything."


	2. Chapter 2

Probably shouldn't read this bit at work, for here there be Omegaverse sex with all the stuff that entails, though not as in-depth as it can get.

**TRIGGER WARNING:** Contains brief, non-explicit miscarriage imagery. Although it's only one sentence, a trigger is a trigger, no matter how small, and it's important to respect that.

* * *

It had started with generally feeling a little off, but that was easy to dismiss given their circumstances. Moriarty was loose, accusations were flying, the media was glaring down on them… it all came together in a thick, choking stew of stress. John would have been more surprised if absolutely none of it got to his head at all. As it was, the slight foggy-headedness and restlessness was easy enough to explain.

It was certainly a more convenient and welcome explanation than the only other thing that John knew fit his symptoms.

Everything went to hell the moment the Chief Superintendent entered the room, more or less. John found himself the victim of a sudden, intense feeling of warmth accompanied by a wave of hyper-awareness. If John's rational mind had the chance, it would have raised all the warning bells it had available to let him know his heat was coming on unexpectedly. But that in itself was the problem: John's rational mind was kicked, rather abruptly, into the backseat as pure, base biology took over.

He could smell _everything_, including that the Chief Superintendent was an Omega. His scent was incredibly dull, however, far duller than even an Omega who was now outside his fertile years. Even though this meant that the man had either always been sterile or had elected to sterilize himself years and years ago, irrational and primal rage hummed in John's blood.

Couldn't this idiot smell that this was _John's_ territory he was invading? Was he after Sherlock? Oh no, no, Sherlock was _his_ Alpha – only _he_ could produce the perfect scent to make the world's only consulting detective mad with desire.

And then the man made the grave error of insulting the Alpha of an Omega in heat. He was lucky to just get out of it with a broken nose.

Dazed from the hormones coursing wildly through his blood, John barely registered getting slammed against the police car and handcuffed to – oh. Handcuffed to Sherlock. Well, _that_ could prove interesting. Most of the officers must have been Betas with weak senses of smell, as nobody capable of picking up on the thickening fog of pheromones would ever dream of doing such a thing with an Omega in heat and an Alpha, especially if the two were bonded.

John vaguely heard Sherlock moan and grumble, "Your timing is atrocious."

"Can't help it," John panted. "And you don't mind. I can smell it. Can smell _you_."

He didn't remember much of the escape, as it corresponded with an especially powerful wave of hormones. There was a vague recollection of a loud shriek and a phony hostage claim, but what made the strongest impression on him was holding Sherlock's hand as they ran through the night. The feel of Sherlock's skin on his was stunning, every nerve alive and tingling and yearning for more.

The next thing John knew for certain was the feel of his back hitting cold, hard metal as Sherlock pressed firmly against him and how the mouth and tongue at his neck was like fire. He could feel Sherlock's erection throb against his lower abdomen and he groaned as he grew increasingly wet in anticipation at having it in him.

"Where…?" The question died in his throat as Sherlock bit down on his clavicle, his skin providing little defense against tooth on bone.

"Abandoned warehouse. Destroyed the padlock. Doesn't matter," Sherlock growled. "You're early. Your wonderful smell… early. Inconvenient."

John gave a gasping laugh as he looped one of his legs around Sherlock, pulling them closer. Feeling quite firmly in place between the metal shutter at his back and the Alpha trailing bites up to his jaw, he moved his hands from their bracing position and threaded them through Sherlock's sweat-damp curly hair. "Then make me a suppressant, Mr. Chemicals."

Sherlock hummed, and John's knees felt weak at the vibration. "Rather not."

"Was that a," John began, but interrupted himself with a series of pants as Sherlock ground into him. "A-a pun?"

"Ugh, puns. _Pedestrian_," Sherlock grumbled, but John felt the taller man's smile against his mouth.

Just the knowledge that he was in the presence of Sherlock's smile, let alone that it was burning pleasure into his own lips like a fire-hot brand, was enough to send John off into another haze. Somehow, the two managed to shed their clothing without tearing too many seams or sending too many buttons rolling away into the night. They ended up lying atop the discarded clothes as if they were some sort of makeshift mattress, and John wasn't sure if it was an accident or by design. In any case, it was nice for Sherlock's enormous coat to serve a practical purpose beyond making its owner look cool.

And then Sherlock was filling him. John saw stars as he clawed at the Alpha's back, leaving bold pink tracks against Sherlock's pale skin. The fact that they never really established a rhythm wasn't a problem, since both were too concerned with how wonderful it was that the raw thrusts and grinding were bringing them as close to the other as they could possibly get. John winced slightly as he felt Sherlock begin to knot, but his eyes slid shut and his mouth fell open as the thick swelling rubbed against his already highly-sensitized nerve endings. He came with a gasp, and as his muscles instinctively clamped down, Sherlock followed suit with a groan.

John was too busy swimming in a sea of sensation, hormones, and pleasure to think twice about the contraceptives he didn't even think he'd need for at least another week. All that mattered was the amazing feel of the slight rocking of Sherlock's hips every few minutes as more of his seed entered him.

Their wrists still bound closely together with the handcuffs, John and Sherlock laced their fingers together.

Only two hours went by before the cloud of pheromones began to dissipate and rationality and urgency returned to them. It was a far cry from the usual three or so days of John's heat, but in an odd way, that was almost reassuring. It made it easier for them to believe that it was a false heat triggered by stress, and that such a strange and ephemeral thing couldn't possibly count. They couldn't hear the police from their spot, so Sherlock offered to try to clean them up a little while John rested.

Gratefully, John allowed himself to slip into exhausted oblivion.

* * *

_When he opened his eyes, the sky was a dark, oppressive overcast grey above him._

_When he turned, Sherlock's corpse was beside him, the same broken, crumpled heap he'd desperately grasped as the world fell apart beneath St. Bart's._

_When he scrambled back, gasping and sobbing and his ears ringing, he noticed that not all of the blood came from Sherlock._

_When he felt something slick on his thighs, he reached between his legs and brought back a violently shaking hand covered in fresh blood._

* * *

John shot up in bed, screaming from the pleasant memory turned nightmare. He'd kicked his sheets off in his sleep and his hands were clenched in tight fists around the fitted cover of the mattress. Bile rose in his throat, and he covered his mouth as he stumbled to the toilet.

Still gasping, he rose to look at himself in the mirror when he was finished being sick. He filled the basin with cold water and splashed his face repeatedly, hoping it would wake him up more and get him further away from the awful dream. His hand tentatively drifted down to his stomach and his lips spread in a small smile. "You're still there," he gasped. "Oh thank God. Thank God."

As his ragged breathing slowed, he rested his forehead against the smooth, cool plain of the mirror. He shut his eyes tightly and took in a deep, shaking breath. He released it slowly, fogging the mirror with his warm breath. He opened his eyes again and left the bathroom.

Even though he had no appetite, he knew he needed to eat for the baby's sake. He was halfway through an impressively ugly omelette and a glass of orange juice which tasted especially acidic when his phone buzzed with an incoming text.

_Get dressed.__  
Mycroft_

John pulled a sour face as he crunched on a bit of eggshell that had made its way into the omelette. He looked around the flat, trying to think of likely hidden camera locations. Only a week had passed since Mycroft had discovered his pregnancy, so there couldn't have been any cameras lurking about in the past five months. On top of that, he hadn't been out of the flat much since Mycroft found out. Could he have slipped in and set something up somehow?

He texted back. _WHY? ALSO, CAMERAS IN FLAT Y/N_

_Made an appointment with a top Omega reproductive specialist. You need a check-up. Get dressed.__  
Mycroft_

"Way to not answer, Mycroft," John grumbled. _WHEN?_

_Waiting outside now.__  
Mycroft_

"Shit!" John hissed. He choked down the rest of the omelette and quickly finished off the glass of orange juice. _FIVE MINUTES._

He ran up the stairs by twos and dressed himself quickly in a beige jumper and one of the few pairs of jeans that he hadn't outgrown. He scanned the wardrobe frantically, wondering if he'd missed anything. Then he spotted it.

Carefully, he pulled down Sherlock's dark blue scarf, the one he wore most frequently. He held it up to his nose and breathed deeply, closing his eyes as the scent – stale, but there and infinitely welcome – hit him. "For luck," he murmured. He wrapped the scarf around his neck, trying to tuck his nose as close to it as possible.

With that, he made his way to Mycroft's waiting car.


	3. Chapter 3

**Note: **There's a quick, silly little reference to one of ACD's stories in here, albeit through a modernized filter. If you spot it, you get... erm, well, bragging rights, anyway. :)

* * *

The specialist's waiting room was the second-poshest place John had ever been in, and even then Buckingham Palace's lead was very narrow.

The office was high in a skyscraper, and an enormous, pristine window of golden-tinted glass presented the London skyline in a way that made it almost seem like something out of an antique photograph. The chairs all had the smoothest leather upholstery John had ever felt. There was one larger central table and three smaller end tables which were all made from finely varnished dark red cherry wood. On top of the table were several magazines with topics ranging from the obvious (six different pregnancy and parenting magazines) to the weirdly obscure (one magazine about the appreciation of artisan cuckoo clocks), and the only thing they had in common was that they appeared to cater to a higher-end clientele.

What really threw John for a loop, though, were the little things. He was used to crowded, noisy waiting rooms filled with impatient people who got into arguments, sneezed on everything, bled on whatever they didn't sneeze on, and did it all beneath the migraine-inducing synthetic glare of stark fluorescent lighting. The lighting here was soft and soothing, coming from elegant lamps placed on the end tables and a very modern-looking chandelier fixture attached to the ceiling.

Then there was the fact that the only actual people waiting were John and Mycroft. John knew that only the highest level of influence afforded the luxury of allowing only the very next patient to wait in such a room. And then he squinted, noticing the name on the degrees (Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard Medical) displayed in fine frames on the wall near the check-in desk. His eyes grew wide and his heart skipped a beat or two.

John sniffed. "Mycroft?" he asked, his tone pinched as he continued to stare at the degrees.

"Mm."

"What… what on earth am I doing here?"

"Awaiting an appointment which will determine the status of your health and the development of my niece or nephew," Mycroft answered simply.

"Not _literally_, Mycroft!" John hissed. "We're in the office of _Doctor Judith Wilson_!"

"Yes. I realize you are angling for an 'And?', so there it is."

"_And_ she's one of the leaders in the field of the Omega reproductive system, having helped pioneer its modern study! We'd probably still be in the dark-ages of Omegas as second-class citizens if she hadn't done so much for the Omega rights movements of the 60's and 70's! For fuck's sake, she's delivered every member of the Royal Family born since 1982!"

"Language," Mycroft chastised mildly. John groaned, but Mycroft continued speaking before he could launch into another tirade. "I did say the appointment was with a top specialist. I'm not given to hyperbole."

John didn't really believe that for a second, but he had the impression that pursuing the matter any further would get him nowhere. He sighed. "Fine."

"You're not even going to ask me how I accomplished this?"

"No, no I am not. I learned a long time ago to stop questioning the How of Holmeses."

"You're thinking that would be a wonderful title for a blog entry if you had the occasion to use it, aren't you."

"No!" John denied, a bit too hastily. "Shut up."

After a moment of tetchy silence, John finally glanced over to Mycroft and noticed his reading material. He frowned in confusion and asked, "Are you… are you reading a baby magazine? Newspapers are much more your style, aren't they?"

Mycroft didn't look up as he replied, "You kept me waiting in the car so long, I finished my supply. Even _The Sun_ and _The Daily Mail_."

John rolled his eyes and muttered, "How was I supposed to know you were out there for twenty minutes before you texted?"

"In any case," Mycroft said imperiously, clearly changing the subject. "According to this article, it's currently especially 'in vogue', as it were, to name one's child after the location in which it was conceived. Quite a few little Brooklyns and Londons running around as a result and, of course, the ever-popular Porsches and Mercedes."

John frowned at him. "Mycroft, are you- are you actually, honestly asking what I think you're asking?"

"I don't recall the presence of either an interrogative word or an upwards-pitched intonation towards the end of my sentence."

John scoffed. "Right," he grumbled. A moment later he added, "Abandoned Warehouse Holmes just rolls off the tongue. Could be a future PM with a name like that."

"Very respectable, in a Puritanical way," Mycroft stated, still looking down at the magazine. "You could call it Abby for short."

Before John could recover from the shock of Mycroft Holmes, of all people, making a joke, the door leading to the corridor of check-up rooms opened. A male nurse held the door open for an Alpha woman and her pregnant female Omega partner. John vaguely recognized the Alpha from television, though he couldn't quite place where, as he'd scrupulously avoided the media for the last several months in case unpleasant memories came up. She seemed to have the physical bearing and styling of a serious professional newscaster or journalist, though. Her partner was lovely and a month or two further along in her pregnancy than John. She had a fine bone structure and moved with a highly-practiced and trained grace despite the cumbersome aspects of pregnancy. A dancer?

A bittersweet pang hit John's heart when he realized he was deducing, even if it was just the kind of thing Sherlock would have dismissed as blindingly obvious.

The nurse chatted with the pair amiably as he arranged future appointments and bid them a good day. He flipped a page on the clipboard he held and scanned it. His eyes flicked over to John and he smiled. "John Watson?"

John blinked, surprised Mycroft made the appointment under his real name, common though it was. What if word got out to the media? What if they saw this as a new juicy twist in the Sherlock Holmes story? What if they came banging on his door and asking countless questions and – he forced himself to stop thinking about it. He stood, somewhat awkwardly, and walked to the door. "Ah, yes. That's me." He looked over at Mycroft, who was still sitting. "Staying here?"

"I have something I need to do. I'll be in for the sonogram, however."

The nurse scribbled something down and nodded. "Right. Let's get the little things out of the way before the doctor sees you. Please follow me."

John ran through the basics with the nurse: his height and weight were measured, his blood pressure checked, the date of his last heat provided, and a small urine sample given to determine hormone levels. It reminded John of routines at the surgery, and he relaxed slightly at the familiarity. It didn't take long, and the nurse escorted him to a check-up room. "The doctor will be with you in just a moment, sir. Thank you for your patience."

And so John sat on the cool examination table, his only company the detailed anatomical diagrams of female and male pregnant Omegas. His hand found its way to his stomach as he mentally pleaded for good news. He certainly hadn't had much of that in the past half-year. Subconsciously, his other hand pulled Sherlock's scarf closer to his nose.

Fortunately, he wasn't alone with his nerves for long. The door handle turned, and John looked over to see Doctor Judith Wilson enter. She was a handsome Omega woman in her mid-sixties with a face that exuded warmth and confidence beneath a thick mop of curled, grey-tinged hair that had clearly once fully been a bright, fiery red.

"Good afternoon, Doctor Watson," she said cheerfully. "How are you today?"

"Uh, a little gobsmacked, not going to lie. This visit was kind of unexpected and, well, you were sort of my idol growing up. Really championing the rights of Omegas, teaching Alphas it's not okay to treat us as property, breaking out and thriving in a field previously denied us and making all kinds of medical breakthroughs… so… yeah, thanks for… for all that."

Dr. Wilson laughed. "Oh, you great flatterer," she said happily. "Well, I'll have you know that I am quite the fan of your work, as well. What a blog!"

John immediately paled. "Er, about that – "

Dr. Wilson held up a hand, silencing him. "One doesn't reach my level of expertise without appreciating the importance of discretion, more so than even the standard measure of patient-doctor confidentiality," she said seriously. "I only hire assistants with whom I would trust my life." She paused for a moment and gave John a concerned, almost sad look. "I take it the baby is Sherlock's, then?"

John tried to swallow the lump that had risen in his throat to little success. He nodded and whispered, "Yeah."

Dr. Wilson sighed. She raised a hand to cup her chin in thought. Finally, she asked, "Did he ever tell you that he once did me a great service?"

John blinked. "No. He did?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "One of my sons, Jabez, is unfortunately rather gullible. He got that from his father, bless his trusting soul. A few years ago, he came to Sherlock asking him to investigate why his part-time employer suddenly vanished. He said that Sherlock had dismissed him with exceptional rudeness until he discovered his relation to me. Long story short, poor Jabie had been duped by the infamous hacking group League of Gingers, who hoped associating with him would give them hints on how to hack into the private files of my patients. A lot of tabloids would pay good money for that information."

"And Sherlock stopped them right before they cracked into your system," John said, smiling wistfully.

"Seconds before," Dr. Wilson said. She mirrored John's expression. "Needless to say, I believe in Sherlock Holmes and his abilities."

"Thank you," John whispered.

Dr. Wilson's fond smile dulled somewhat. "Unfortunately, this does mean that you have a very high-risk pregnancy, Dr. Watson. It's a real relic of an evolutionary tactic. Though we may despise it today, it was once the best way to conserve energy and ensure both the survival of the Alpha-less Omega as well as increase the odds for any future bonding. Rest assured that I will do my best for you, but I just wouldn't advise believing whole-heartedly in a miracle."

"Please, call me John. And… I know," John said. He smiled grimly. "I asked for a miracle once. I know how it goes."

"Best to take it one day at a time, and remember that there's no shame in hope," Dr. Wilson said. Her expression brightened slightly. She clapped her hands together and continued, "Now, if you could just lie back on the table and lift your jumper, I can see how things are going."

John obliged, and soon Dr. Wilson was pressing gentle, practiced hands around the swell of his belly. A look of concentration settled on her face as she worked. "Have you felt movement yet?"

"Yes, though infrequently and not too strong." His breath hitched when he felt a series of taps from within. The feeling of it never ceased to amaze him, and every time it happened he felt relieved at the knowledge that the baby was still alive.

"Ah, speak of the devil. Someone doesn't like being poked. Strength feels about right for this stage." Dr. Wilson removed her hand from John's middle and pulled a measuring tape from a nearby cabinet. After measuring, she said, "A little small for 22 weeks, but it's your first and you're not exactly a towering behemoth anyway." She laughed when John wrinkled his nose in distaste at the joke.

"Up you get," she said, helping John sit up. He pulled his jumper back in place and adjusted the scarf as Dr. Wilson wrote down notes. "Now, if you would follow me, we'll head to the ultrasound room and we can look at and listen to that baby."

When they entered the room, John was surprised to see Mycroft already there, standing mildly next to the equipment as if it were the most natural place in the world for him to appear and shame on you for thinking otherwise. So that's what 'be in for the sonogram' meant.

"I see a nurse let you in, Mr. Holmes. Or perhaps Uncle Mycroft is a better name for this occasion," Dr. Wilson said conversationally. She grinned and added, "How are my wrinkly little plums doing?"

"The princes are considerably less wrinkled and red-faced than last you saw them in person, Dr. Wilson."

John was tempted to ask how the two knew each other, but then he remembered that Mycroft knew everyone, whether they reciprocated that knowledge or not. He let the curiosity go. Soon, he was once again lying down with his stomach exposed, only this time with the added discomfort of having cold gel smeared over him.

The moment the screen turned on, however, all thoughts of discomfort were completely gone. John was mesmerized by the moving images on the screen, even if it didn't particularly look like a baby at first. Dr. Wilson moved the ultrasound head around and suddenly John _saw_.

"Oh," he breathed.

From this angle, it actually looked like a person. A person with an enormous head and skinny little arms, but a person regardless. John could see the contours of the nose and lips, and he chuckled in awe as he watched a little hand get closer to the mouth. "Is it doing what I think it's doing?"

"That is definitely thumb-sucking, yes," Dr. Wilson said as she saved the frame for print-out.

John knew he should be listening closer to Dr. Wilson as she pointed out and labeled various body parts, but he was far too busy being overwhelmed by what he was seeing and – when Dr. Wilson set the doppler to pick up the heartbeat – hearing. His instincts were surging, and certain thoughts raced wildly through his mind: _It's alive. It's there and it's alive. It's there and it's alive and it's part of Sherlock. Oh God, may it live forever._

He did his best to keep the tears from falling, but there was no stopping their formation.

What Dr. Wilson said next managed to cut through John's daze. "-ink I can get a pretty clear view of the genitalia. You'll have to wait until after the birth to find out its full gender, especially since it'll still be quite a few weeks yet before it releases the hormones that will shape it into an Alpha, Beta, or Omega. But would you like to know if it's male or female?"

John blinked rapidly and cleared his throat. "Oh, um, I'm not sure. I don't have a preference; I'm just… I'm just glad to have it."

"If Sherlock were with us, he would insist on deducing such things," Mycroft added.

John laughed, even though the visual of Sherlock prodding at his belly and rambling deductions broke his heart with its impossibility. "You know, don't tell me. It'll be a tribute to him."

"Very well," Dr. Wilson said with a smile. "I'll just tell you that there are no irregularities there either."

A few more minutes of scanning and screen-capturing later, Dr. Wilson shut off the equipment and wiped the gel from John's abdomen. "Well, John, everything looks very good so far. Like we discussed earlier, though, do not take that as an invitation to lose vigilance. For example, if you haven't quit work yet, then you need to today. I'll also be scheduling frequent appointments with you, and now that I know your full situation, I may make them house calls."

"I'll have to think about it," John said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Some of Sherlock's scent still lingers in the flat, and it's… it's pretty much been my lifeline. I don't know which will help it keep longer: me coming here, or you visiting."

"I'll discuss it with some scent researchers I know. They're good people, really know what they're talking about," Dr. Wilson replied. She helped John up from the examination table and the two settled on the appointment schedule as they made their way back to the waiting room. Mycroft, who was busy checking his phone, trailed behind them.

Upon check out, John was presented with several print-outs and a DVD of the scan. He stared at the pictures the whole drive back to Baker Street, as if trying to memorize every detail in them. When he showed them to Mrs. Hudson, she seized him in a surprisingly powerful hug, crying and going on about the baby. Fortunately even Mrs. Hudson's most powerful, vice-grip of a hug wasn't enough for John to worry about the baby's safety, which was good, given that it took his landlady a solid five minutes to come to her senses.

They hung the pictures on the refrigerator with baby bootie-shaped magnets Mrs. Hudson had picked up in a store.

* * *

Later on, when Mycroft was being driven away from Baker Street, he keyed in the password on his phone and looked through the sonogram photos he'd managed to download through the tap he'd secured in the ultrasound machine. He selected one that was a nice balance between a reasonable representation of a forming human being and abstract blobs and went to his text archive.

From there, he selected "Sherlock – Mission Number".

There was a distinct trend in the content of the texts there. His eyes glanced over a few as he scrolled to the bottom.

_Tell me how John is. – SH_

_Send picture of John. Shoddy, blurry CCTV footage will do. – SH_

_Took down a small cell of Moriarty's followers. I deserve a reward. One of John's worn jumpers preferable. – SH_

_Send me a lock of John's hair or I shall buy every ounce of cocaine in Columbia. I am here, and I will do it. – SH_

_John would be in heat now. If you come within a five mile radius of him, you will pray for death, and I will make sure that said demise could be beaten by a glacier if a race were involved. – SH_

_I need him. Something. Anything. – SH_

Mycroft's responses had all been denials, usually with the explanation that such things would just further distract Sherlock from his mission, but there were a few flat 'no's in there. Mycroft had bad days like anyone else.

This time, however, he sent the picture. Then he waited, wondering if Sherlock had deleted the most common usage of ultrasounds in favor of something more interesting, like determining if certain poisons had literally melted away sections of the liver.

Thirty seconds later, he got a response: _Explain. – SH_

_You did say a shoddy, blurry picture would do. Granted, most of the picture is of something your doctor cares about very much, but he's technically there as well.__  
Mycroft_

A full minute went by this time. Sherlock was probably analyzing the picture in tremendous detail if it was taking a whole minute. When the next text came, Mycroft was eager to see how accurate his deletion theory was.

_Contents hardly discernible. You are really letting the surveillance equipment of our fair privacy-throttling nation rot. That said, it's not a completely horrible gesture on your part. – SH_

Mycroft smirked, pocketed his phone, and leaned back into his seat. Deleted it was. He'd expected that much, but the Sherlock equivalent of a gushing thank-you had been a nice bonus.


	4. Chapter 4

**TRIGGER WARNING**: contains references to pregnancy complications, distress of that nature, and implied suicidal ideation. Be advised.

* * *

It was the first week of John's third trimester, and even though he was the lucky recipient of a shifting sense of gravity and a new shortness of breath that had him panting like he'd raced through London after simply ascending the stairs, he was keeping himself busy.

Very early on in the pregnancy, he had started fussing about the apartment. He'd move things from one spot to another, stare at them in a calculating squint, and nine times out of ten move it right back before starting the whole process over again. That had never gone away, but it was now reaching a point where even John felt a bit silly listening to his own instincts' OCD. It hit him right around the point he realized the skull had occupied every square inch of the living room at one point or another. The realization didn't especially keep him from doing it, though.

He'd also been doing a lot of reading, mostly articles and journals written by Dr. Wilson and her associates passed along to him during check-ups. This, too, was not technically a new thing, but like the fidgety nesting, the time spent on it had trended up dramatically over the past few weeks.

It was all this reading that had lead John to the activity he was now engaged in.

"Um," he said, drawing out the sound. He laughed a little awkwardly and continued, "Where to start, right? So, according to some stuff I've been reading, I suppose you can hear me now? Or are starting to, I mean. That's really amazing, even if it means I should probably start watching my language. With my luck, your first word would be a four-letter one."

He tried to tell himself that it wasn't like talking to the skull. At least the thing he was speaking to had ears, even if they were surrounded by fluid and covered by layers of muscle and skin. And may or may not have even finished forming. The skull's ear-having days were long in the past, in contrast. No points of similarity whatsoever, clearly.

"I realize I probably sound like some kind of awful water demon or something to you right now, being all boom-y voiced and indistinct, but – God, did I just say that?" John winced and rubbed a hand over his face. His child was going to born thinking its parent was a ridiculous weirdo. He thought he'd have at least a couple of years – maybe even a full childhood before the onslaught of teenage hormones, if he were lucky – of unconditional adoration before it came to that conclusion, but no. He was doomed.

"Forget I said that. Let's start over. I suppose I can describe the flat to you. With any luck, you'll be growing up here, after all." John cleared his throat and began slowly walking around, running his hands over things, sometimes wistfully, sometimes clearly wondering if it could be rearranged in a better way.

"So, there's a skull," he said, smiling at it. His grin grew wider as he continued, "_No_, you cannot play with it, young man or lady. Absolutely no using it for teething, either. I don't know where it's been or… or even _who_ it's been, but if you knew your…"

The rest of the sentence withered on his lips, and he had to take a deep breath and try to distance himself from the emotions coursing through him. "Anyway, skull's off limits," he finished huskily.

He glanced over to the patterned wallpaper and cleared his throat. "There's a big yellow smiley-face on one of the walls, and there are holes in it. Don't ask, I'll tell you when you're older. Also, it is not an invitation to start coloring on whatever you want. I'll make you an offer: if you stick to paper, I'll put whatever you draw on the fridge, okay? Even if we can barely tell there's a fridge under there anymore, since it'll be covered in all your masterpieces. Deal?"

"What else… oh, I've been describing the place, and not even the people who will be in your life. Well, there's me. Hi. I'm not just your living room. I know, shocker. There's your sweet grandmum, Mrs. Hudson. She may not be related to us by blood, but she is by everything that actually matters. You'll love her, and she already adores you. And there's your Uncle Mycroft. He's… something. You'll know what I mean. He might seem like a bit of a prat and, well, he is, kind of a big one actually, but he's not all bad. I don't think he's the type to do the regular uncle things with you, but if he ever tells you to pull his finger, _don't you do it_. It's probably rigged to an explosive in some odd corner of the world instead of the regular thing."

He shut his eyes and tilted his head back.

"And there's someone else."

He stood in place for a long while, a small frown on his face and a hand on his stomach. "He might not be here physically, but he's inescapable. And I'll tell you all about him, about our mad adventures and his brilliant ways and his decidedly less brilliant ways. He's carved himself into this flat and the people you'll see in it: me and your grandmum and your uncle. And maybe every time you look in the mirror, you'll see some of him looking back."

He made his way back to his chair, which he practically collapsed in. He tried desperately not to think too much, but it was hard to stave off such bone-deep restlessness and the gnawing dread that all of his hope was hanging over oblivion by a thin thread.

Two weeks ago, the last of Sherlock's scent had faded away.

* * *

"John, John, oh dear."

It was Mrs. Hudson's voice. John opened his eyes, rubbing at them blearily. He had gone up for a nap, and once he started to actually wake up, the reasonably accurate internal clock he'd developed in the army informed him that a couple of hours had gone by. Mrs. Hudson was standing by the bed, rubbing her hands together and looking at him with worry.

"Mrs. Hudson? What's wrong – is everything alright?"

"Oh, John," she said. "It's that policewoman. She's downstairs. She says she won't leave unless she speaks with you."

To others, Mrs. Hudson's words may have been frustratingly general, but John knew exactly who she was talking about. It was as if someone replaced all the blood in John's veins with ice water. The chill ran through him violently, raising goose flesh down the back of his neck and up his arms. He collected himself to the best of his ability, and said hoarsely, "Right. Right. Tell her- tell her I'll be down in just a moment."

"You're sure? Should I contact Mycroft? I'm sure he could do something…"

"I'm sure Mycroft could have Sergeant Donovan put on the moon if he wanted to," John said. "But the longer I stall and if I let Mycroft handle everything in his way, the more time and ammunition she has for damaging explanations. Your idea was good, though, so please do contact him."

Mrs. Hudson nodded nervously, leaving John to finish steeling himself.

_Be brave. Stay focused. Don't flinch. You know yourself._

* * *

Sally Donovan's mouth was pressed into a thin line as John came down the stairs and stood before her. Her arms were folded over her chest. "Just what I thought," she said, staring at John's middle. "Soon as I stepped in, I knew it, even with my Beta nose. I knew that freak had knocked you up."

John took in a deep breath and released it slowly. "Why are you here, Sergeant?"

"A bunch of us hit the pubs last night to celebrate one of the lads finding out his partner is pregnant. The Beta Female-Beta Male extended hormone treatments followed by months of guessing games kind of pregnant, mind. The kind where you actually have to _work_ for it instead of just slipping up. I was helping Lestrade be sick in some bushes after, and he mentioned how disappointed he was that we wouldn't be able to do the same for Sherlock, as it would've been – and I quote – 'funny as hell to get him pissed and try and make him change nappies on a baby doll. Put _that_ on Youtube.' Some slurring cut out, of course."

John frowned at the discovery that it had been Lestrade who let things slip. Months ago, when he'd stumbled across John's predicament, the Detective Inspector had sworn up and down to keep it quiet after he understood the magnitude of the situation. To John's knowledge, he hadn't told anyone else. True, Mycroft had shown up later in the same day, but that was _Mycroft._

Donovan seemed to pick up on John's displeasure. "If it means anything, he went on and on saying that it was just a bad joke, that it was just that you two were practically joined at the hip and that it would've been a matter of time, and so on. I probably wouldn't have thought twice about it if he hadn't denied it so much and seemed to shaken."

"That's how you got here, Sergeant," John said. "Not why."

"Had to be sure," she answered. "But sometimes it's terrible being right." Her eyes held John's for a long moment, and he was surprised to see pity there. She shook her head in disgust and continued, "God, I knew he was an awful man, but I didn't think he'd stoop so low."

"What are you talking about?"

"It's obvious, isn't it?" she said. "He slipped you something to bring your heat on faster. The bastard _knew_ he was caught, and he wanted one more round of hormone-induced jollies for old times' sake. It's all chemicals – _addiction_. He made it so you couldn't consent in your right mind."

Whatever chill remained in John's system left in a flash. Fury burned hot in him, and he found his grasp on his control wavering. "He did no such thing," he hissed. "It was brought on by stress. He was even more surprised by it than I was."

"Acting!" Donovan exclaimed. "It is a proven fact that he was a liar! Outside of poor, dead Richard Brook, you're his biggest victim, so why can't you just accept that he was a monster?"

John heard Mrs. Hudson gasp from where she was watching in the kitchen, followed by her worried voice warning him about keeping calm for the baby's sake. But it wasn't registering, not really. The fury was still building inside of him. His breathing was starting to come fast and ragged, and his palms itched with the pent-up need to do something – anything – to stop the accusations from coming. His control was cracking, but it was still there. "I am no one's victim!" John roared.

"You _need_ to come to terms with it," Donovan insisted. "You're so deep in denial and too blinded by love that your kid will grow up with Sherlock bloody Holmes on a pedestal of greatness, and what happens when the truth comes out?" Something awful seemed to dawn on Donovan, and she continued with her expression aghast. "God, and that's assuming the kid's normal, that it won't inherit whatever was wrong with him! With a father like that, any sensible person would have got rid-"

She cut herself off abruptly. For one long, tense moment, a sergeant and a doctor stared at each other, unblinking. Waiting to see who would make the next move. As it happened, it was both of them at the same time.

"That was out of line, and I apologize." Genuine contrition.

"_What did you say?_" Quiet, hissed through quivering lips.

Donovan raised her hands in a placating gesture. "I know I can say things rough when I'm worked up, but for God's sake, it's for good reason. Your devotion to… to a psychopath conman is so unhealthy, especially with a baby thrown in..."

At long last, John felt his control snap. All the anger that had been coiling inside him, building and building to a fever pitch burst forth. "You can't even _begin_ to imagine how full of shit you sound right now!" He was screaming, certainly louder than he'd ever been outside of combat. But then again, he was in a warzone in its own right. "You have no idea, none whatsoever, you-"

Pain. A horrible, blinding pain raced through his abdomen. John froze at first, holding his breath and praying that it was something – anything – else than what he thought it was. A second pain tore through him, and he gasped, clutching at his middle, "Mrs. Hudson – my phone – Dr. Wilson…"

John only vaguely recognized the things that started happening around him at that point. He felt Mrs. Hudson at his side in seconds, guiding him to a chair, even though a shocked numbness had spread through his body and made her thin hand on his back feel alien. He heard her make a couple of desperate calls, though her voice was muffled through the rushing in his ears. He saw a look of panicked surprise on Donovan's face even through eyes that seemed to struggle to focus.

_No, no, God no._

Donovan must have attempted to leave, as even through his muddled senses, he heard Mrs. Hudson exclaim, "Young lady, you've already helped me lose one of the most important people in my life. If I lose another, God forbid, so help me, I won't be held accountable for what I will do!"

_Please, it's too early, stop it._

He clenched his eyes tight.

_Please, God, let it live._

* * *

Mycroft had arrived moments after Dr. Wilson and some of her assistants, but only because the way he'd redirected traffic to allow her to get to 221B Baker Street as quickly as possible slowed his own route down slightly. He'd stayed out of the way as she checked John incredibly thoroughly, confirming that the labor was false and that the baby was still alive, if somewhat distressed.

After all, Mycroft had his own matters to attend to at the same time. He found Sally Donovan a difficult person – the self-righteous ones always were – but he felt that they'd reached a solid understanding by the time he allowed her to leave. She wouldn't tell a soul about John's condition or ever come within a mile of the flat again, and she wouldn't suddenly find herself on several government watch lists. Everybody was a winner.

When he finished, he discussed options with Dr. Wilson. In an ideal situation, she would have liked to take John to a hospital for full monitoring. However, the need for privacy was too great, and if any gossip-monger sniffed out John's identity and spread the word to the media, she was certain it would end John's pregnancy sooner rather than later. Although a fetus in less stressful conditions had a decent chance of surviving if it were born at this stage, in this case, it would be a certain death sentence.

The only option for John was full bed rest until it was safer to deliver.

Although John had always used the upstairs bedroom and Sherlock had eventually joined him there once they became intimate, the doctor and her assistants relocated John to the lower-level bedroom for convenience and practicality. Once he was settled into the new room, Dr. Wilson and her assistants were in there with him for several hours. Mycroft assumed it was to check and double-check John's condition, as well as to inform him on what to do to prevent that false labor from coming back with a terrible authenticity.

The whole time John was shut up in the room with the doctor and her associates, Mrs. Hudson fretted at Mycroft. He'd never been good when it came to comforting, so he let her ramble without interruption. As Mycroft knew, if incendiary words made up the majority of your rhetoric, sometimes refusing to say a thing was comfort in its own way.

When Dr. Wilson finally left John's room in preparation to leave, Mrs. Hudson pulled her aside for questioning. Mycroft took this as his opportunity. He rapped on the bedroom door quietly, but didn't bother for assent before he entered.

John was sitting propped up against the headboard by a large pile of pillows. He had an ashen pallor and the slump of his shoulders and contours of his face revealed intense physical and emotional exhaustion. A hand was on his stomach, moving in small, protective circles. His tired eyes flicked up to meet Mycroft's at the door frame.

"John," Mycroft greeted.

"Mycroft," John replied. He added, "'m fine."

"Of course."

"Donovan?"

"Dealt with," Mycroft said as he entered. There was a chair at the bedside, and he settled himself in it. He had a briefcase with him, which he unlocked. He pulled out several newspapers and offered them to John. "A little light reading. I'm certain it will be of interest."

John glanced over the article titles, reading them aloud with increasing awe. "'More Moriarty Mobsters Made Known', 'Media Madness: Did Overzealous Reporting Drive an Innocent Man to Suicide?', 'Over Fifty Members of Vast Criminal Web Caught, Confess', 'Storyteller DVDs Revealed to Be Scam', '_I Believe in Sherlock Holmes_' Web Campaign Gains Momentum'. " He looked up at Mycroft in surprise.

"The tides are turning," Mycroft stated.

"Good," John said, his voice thick. "That's – that's good." He was quiet for a long moment, reading the articles intently. When he finished, he closed his eyes tightly and released a long breath. "Why now?"

"Why not?"

"Why would Moriarty's henchmen come forward at all?"

"Ah, I forgot how incredibly loyal hardened criminals are. Certainly not cutthroat in the slightest," Mycroft said. "You're right, it's horribly out of character; they're normally such saints."

"You know what I mean."

Mycroft shrugged. "Guilty conscience? A guardian angel, or karma-devouring demon? Vengeful spirits? Your guess is as good as mine."

"You don't guess."

"Oh my, no. Never."

John was quiet a moment, pressing his lips in a firm line. Eventually he cleared his throat and said, "There's something I'd like you to have too."

Mycroft raised an eyebrow in interest. "Oh?"

"They're in the old bedroom, on the desk. Two envelopes. If you could bring them here, please."

It didn't take Mycroft long to find the large manila envelopes, and he held them up when he returned to John's new room. "These?"

"That's right," John said. "I put them together last week, after the last of the scent faded away. The one with the eyelet contains how I want things done if something happens to me – how I want the child raised if it's still young and so on. I'd like to make you its legal guardian since I don't feel comfortable trusting Harry with it. You might not be the family type, but I'll take coldness over impending cirrhosis of the liver."

"And the sealed one?"

John turned his head, refusing to meet Mycroft's eyes. "Worst case scenario."

Something in Mycroft's jaw twitched, but that was the only movement in his face. "And what is this 'worst case scenario'?" he finally asked.

The small, joyless laugh from John told him everything. "Don't play a fool, Mycroft. You know."

It was true. He did.

"Just in case," John added.

Mycroft placed the envelopes in his briefcase and left without another word.

Comforts weren't his specialty, after all. Not for others or himself.

* * *

Mycroft sat at his large, ornate desk with the envelopes laid out in front of him. His suit jacket was off, hung on the back of the well-carved chair he was sitting in. His chin rested on his laced-together fingers as he stared down at what were essentially two variations of John's will. One terrible, and the other far, far worse.

The odds on his various scenarios were changing.

He'd come up with the scenarios when he decided to help Sherlock with his scheme to take down Moriarty's web. He'd had to scrap all the original ones once he'd discovered that Sherlock had left a little spanner in the works behind in the form of John's pregnancy. But he had come up with more.

**Scenario One:** Sherlock takes as long as needed to completely wipe out Moriarty's stragglers, and returns to a cleared name and relative safety. John has a safe pregnancy and delivers a healthy baby. After a tremendous amount of counseling, a family is reunited.  
**Outcome:** Best scenario.  
**Odds:** Dwindling rapidly.

**Scenario Two:** Sherlock takes as long as needed to completely wipe out Moriarty's stragglers, and returns to a cleared name and relative safety. John loses the baby but is prevented from following through with his own 'worst case scenario'. When the two are reunited, John is unable to bear the idea that the child could have lived if Sherlock had returned sooner and severs ties.  
**Outcome:** Heartbreak all around, incredibly high odds of cataclysmic relapse on Sherlock's part. A series of Danger Nights to end all Danger Nights.  
**Odds:** High and holding steady.

**Scenario Three:** Sherlock takes as long as needed to completely wipe out Moriarty's stragglers, and returns to a cleared name and relative safety. John loses the baby and follows through with his own 'worst case scenario'. Reunion occurs when Sherlock discovers a headstone reading 'JOHN WATSON & CHILD' next to his fake tombstone.  
**Outcome:** Too nightmarish to even contemplate.  
**Odds:** Increasing exponentially.

Mycroft sighed heavily. He hadn't wanted to interrupt his brother's mission for anything, but the cost of keeping silent was starting to become too high to pay. As ruinous results quickly became the most likely outcome for this whole ordeal, Mycroft was forced to contemplate what precisely defined a failed mission.

He picked up his phone, sent a text, and resumed his thinking position.

_Situation with John. Life or death.__  
__Mycroft_

Thirty seconds later, he received a response.

_Next flight from Zurich to Heathrow full. Kick someone off immediately. – SH_

And so Mycroft did.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock was out of his seat and storming up and down the aisle at a mad pace the moment the fastened seatbelt light blinked off. He'd spent an absolutely infuriating length of time strapped in place, legs practically vibrating in frustrated pent-up energy, and he was now free to expend that energy as he wished.

And he wished to pace. And think. To him, they were currently intrinsically linked, and the notion of having one without the other was laughable at best.

'_Life or death', 'life or death', 'life or death'. Be __**specific**__, Mycroft, you insufferable, umbrella-twirling parody of a man._

"Sir."

'_Life or death'. Target of one of Moriarty's followers? Without direct order, must be close enough to center of web to have understood spider's processes. Moriarty's most trusted man. Sebastian Moran: elusive, at large. Uncovered plot to take down web? Possible. Discovered my role in it? Unlikely but not out of the question. Why Target John? Moriarty: Alpha, albeit strange one. Moran: Male, sexual role unknown. Lover? Vengeance?_

"Sir."

'_Life or death'. A choice for me? No, only one acceptable answer. Odds, game of chance or strategy. More likely. Moran's talent: sniper. Stealthy, wonderful at hiding. If found, intentional. A lure. The Black Knight lands in a tantalizing spot, urging the White Queen to move into a trap. And the Queen has fallen for it. Honestly, Mycroft, have you __**ever**__ played chess?_

"Sir!"

Sherlock only snapped from his thoughts when he felt the flight attendant's hand on his arm. He shrugged it off roughly and snapped at her, "Can't you see that I am engaged in a brainstorm of the absolute highest importance? Any and all distractions are _not welcome._"

"Sir, please come with me to the back of the plane. We need to talk."

"_We_ don't need to do anything, as _we_ are an entirely imaginary construct. _I_ need to think. Out of the way."

"Sir, this is your final warning," she said in her practiced service-industry politeness. She lowered her voice to a whisper only he could hear and continued, "Come with me or I'll make sure we fly low enough to kick your irritating arse out over the Jura."

Sherlock was about to retort that there was no way she could personally see to such a thing. However, he quickly realized that even if she couldn't literally do that, she could very easily alert the pilots to a need for an emergency landing. That would only lengthen the amount of time it would take him to get to John, and God only knows what could happen in those additional hours.

He made a face like he'd just bitten into an especially bitter lemon. "Fine," he hissed and stomped after her like a pouting toddler to the rear of the aircraft.

"Sir, you can't keep pacing like that. You're worrying the other passengers," she said in a hushed tone.

"Good! Then they are in illustrious company," he snarled back.

She sighed. "Look, the crew got the message from the higher-ups that a passenger in an emergency situation was being upgraded. Obviously that's you. But all the other customers have their own things that they're dealing with, and yours is no more important than theirs are."

Sherlock marveled at her for a second. What it must be like to be a hermit crab trotting along a beach as the tide draws out miles in preparation of a tsunami. What it must be like to be an ant unaware that the shadow it's in is that of a primary schooler with a magnifying glass. What it must be like to be a person whose existence has not been graced with the presence of John Watson, and so is unaware that he is in a situation labeled "life or death". What it must be like to be ignorant that the latter option would render the world completely unlivable.

"'Obviously'? Oh, of course, you have your own deductions, I see. Well, quid pro quo, Miss Jones," he said. She frowned, wondering how he knew her name. She'd forgotten her nametag in Zurich. "Let me tell you some things that are obvious about you, starting with the fact that you are a thief."

She goggled at him. "Excuse m-"

"To begin: your locket. Silver inscribed with the number '85' and little scribbles you call the Chinese characters for words like 'truth' and 'honour' and 'faith' but what I and over a billion others call Sanskrit. Not even attributes, but names: Ajit and Lakshmi. Silver, the color of a 25th wedding anniversary. 1985, the year in which the happy couple wed, but which also doubles as the year of your birth, which is what drew your attention to this piece of jewelry in the first place."

"But-"

"'But Ajit and Lakshmi are actually my BFFsies and let me borrow it!'" Sherlock interrupted, raising his pitch in a sarcastic imitation of her voice. "Wrong. Impossible, or at least extremely unlikely for a racist like you. Yes, Miss Jones, a racist. When you were helping everyone into their seats before takeoff, an elderly Bengali man required your assistance in getting into his seat. Oh, you were all helpful glittery smiles, but the position of your eyebrows, tension in your jaw, and flare of your nostrils spoke of acute agitation. Confirmed once you turned your back on him and squirted a very liberal quantity of sanitizer into your hands. Judicious for someone who constantly works around large numbers of people in an international germ convention thousands of feet in the air? Yes, but poorly-timed. You did it immediately after helping the elderly gentleman, but not after assisting any of the paler passengers afterwards. Miss Jones, if you are going to disdain people, at least be equal opportunity about it."

Miss Jones stared at him, looking even paler than her preferred type of passenger.

"Now, when and how did you get Ajit's anniversary gift to dear Lakshmi? Easy. 25 years after 1985: 2010, the year you began working for this airline, judging by the amount of wear and upkeep on your uniform. Ajit wouldn't trust putting such a personal gift in his checked-in luggage, where things go missing nigh-constantly. No, he thought it would be safer in a carry-on bag stowed in the overhead locker. Normally he would be correct, but – not being me – he couldn't predict that he was stumbling into a scheme. I apologize for calling you a thief earlier, when in truth, you're a mere cog in a clanking mass of clockwork of a thievery ring."

"It starts at the carry-on baggage scan," Sherlock continued. "Where your compatriots keep their eyes open not only for dangerous or forbidden items, but also for promising marks: jewelry boxes, expensive electronics, luxury goods. The descriptions of worthy victims are passed on to all flight attendants involved in the ring, and if they are lucky – and the mark decidedly _un_lucky – they make note of where he or she places the bag in an overhead locker. Now, when do you get the opportunity to steal the actual items? Oh, there are several different ways to engineer that. On very long flights, wait long enough for the majority of the passengers to nod off and the minority of awake passengers to be so accustomed to your presence that they don't suspect a thing when you pop open the lockers for a quick inspection. When you are on a flight with pilots who are in the ring, wait until they manufacture the sensation of turbulence: 'Attention passengers, the choppy air may have caused some jostling in the lockers. Please excuse our flight attendants as they make sure everything is in order.' And if every single member of the flight is in on it and there are just so many goodies to be had, covertly pop on some air masks and lower the air pressure until all the customers feel strangely compelled to take a little nap."

Miss Jones was visibly trembling at this point.

Good. Lowering his voice further, Sherlock went in for the kill.

"But today, you're on your own. You're the only member of your band of thieves on this flight. Worse still, the pilots and other flight attendant are all very, very suspicious of all the missing item reports that have been filed against the airline over the last few years. And if a dullard like you has seen how they glance at you with doubt, then God knows I have. So you're trying to be sweet and good and absolutely innocent, and if you don't wish to have your cover blown, _you will let me pace_."

Miss Jones stared at him for a beat, terrified. After a moment, she reached over for the intercom speaker. Without taking her eyes from Sherlock's for a moment, she spoke into the receiver, "Attention, please. One of our passengers has special needs, and pacing is the only way for him to feel comfortable on the flight. We apologize for any inconvenience, but please be understanding."

Sherlock smirked at her and resumed pacing. His needs _were_ special, after all, far more important and severe than anything the other passengers on the flight could ever conceive. He found himself wondering what John would have thought of the whole exchange. He probably would have made a blog out of it, calling it something inane like 'A Case of Airway Robbery' or possibly just something like 'God, I Can't Take Him Anywhere, Can I?'

John.

'_Life or death.'_

The tiny smile that had found its way to his lips while contemplating John's ridiculous blogging habits vanished.

'_Life or death', 'life or death', 'life or death'._

He paced for an hour and fifteen minutes until he was forced to fasten his safety belt for landing at Heathrow.

* * *

_Hostage situation? – SH_

_No.__  
Mycroft_

_Trap? Stealth required? – SH_

_No.__  
Mycroft_

Sherlock growled as he glared down at the text. He barked at the cabbie to drive faster, but he could tell that the driver slowed down his speed by a third of a mile per hour out of spite. He continued to scowl at his phone for a moment before he continued texting his infuriating brother.

_Send me data, Mycroft! – SH_

_Why? You're here.__  
Mycroft_

Sherlock jerked his head up, nearly cracking it against the car window. After so many months gone, he was finally back on Baker Street, gazing at the one place where he had ever truly felt at home. Well, the one place that wasn't also a hideously bloody crime scene, anyway. It didn't matter that Mycroft was standing outside the door of 221B looking like a suited gargoyle. Sherlock was home and John was meters away instead of thousands of miles.

He tumbled out of the cab and lurched toward the door, but Mycroft stopped him with a swing of his umbrella.

"_Move_," Sherlock snapped.

Mycroft frowned at him. "You don't fully understand the situation. He's in a very delicate way. Just bursting in will make things worse."

"Waiting will make things worse!" Sherlock replied. "If you don't get out of my way –"

"Hello?" It was Mrs. Hudson's voice from the other side of the door. The knob turned, and soon she was staring at a man she'd considered dead and gone for the majority of the year. "Sh-Sherl-!" Her eyes rolled up in the back of her head as she began to faint. Sherlock dove forward to catch her and lean her prone form carefully against the wall. But moments after that, Mycroft had to move forward to keep Sherlock from toppling over himself.

Even just barely through the door, John's scent was heavy in the air, and it had _changed_. Sherlock's pupils dilated to wide, dark pools to the point that the pale grey of his irises were scarcely visible, and his eyes darted wildly as he processed the new information. His nostrils flared, and he took deep, sharp breaths through both his mouth and nose.

Normally, an Alpha had months to adjust to the changing scent of his or her pregnant mate, to cope with the increase in pheromones which strengthened the bond and fostered an even stronger sense of protectiveness between the partners. Sherlock got seven months of it in one sudden burst, more or less bludgeoning him over the head with intense instincts and emotions that he had zero preparation for or experience with.

So obviously his only choice was to seize Mycroft in a headlock.

"You – absolute – despicable – heinous – fat – _bastard!_" Sherlock growled through his teeth.

"Do you think – Sherlock, for heaven's sake! It's yours, you idiot!"

"I know that! It's obvious! I can smell when it was conceived down to the millisecond, so I am aware – very, very keenly aware – that it's mine! But seven months away without the knowledge of this, of how overwhelming John is, of missing all the observations of the subtle changes that come with –"

"I'll have you know I wasn't aware of the situation until approximately two months ago."

"Oh, two months! That changes everything!"

"I sent you a sonogram picture. It isn't my fault you keep insufficient mental records and weren't capable of deducing from there."

Before Sherlock could berate Mycroft about the fact that everyone knew sonograms were for postmortem use only, he froze. A voice was calling out in irritated confusion from further within the flat. The sound of it was sorely missed, and his vice-like grip on Mycroft's head slackened as it rolled over him.

John's voice.

* * *

John heard each heavy footfall as it got closer and closer to his new room. Whoever it was wasn't close enough to smell yet, and John certainly couldn't see anything through the bedroom door. He couldn't be sure, but the footfalls sounded purposeful (_dangerous_ – his instincts insisted, _wants to prolong anxiety, M.O. of types like Moriarty_). He'd grabbed his gun from the bedside table when the loud scuffle had distracted him from his reading, and as those foreboding steps grew closer, John set his impeccably precise aim on the door.

When it opened, the pistol's sight lined up directly with Sherlock Holmes' heart.

John had never seen Sherlock more ruffled and generally poorly-kept. Certainly an impressive feat, considering some of the moods the Alpha got into. His clothes were rumpled and probably hadn't been changed in at least a full day, his hair stuck up in odd puffy angles, he'd lost about ten pounds (somehow; even before, John had always wondered how Sherlock didn't blow away in a stiff wind), and – most shocking of all – he had a five o'clock shadow. Even on their longest, least sanitary cases, when they'd run around for days without proper access to a shower, Sherlock always seemed to find a way to remain perfectly shaven at all times. It got to the point that John wondered if he was even capable of growing facial hair at all.

John's shoulders slumped as he stared at the impossible sight before him. His arms went slack, and the gun dropped from his limp fingers and skidded across the floor. "Oh," he said after another long moment of gazing, unblinking, into those dilated eyes. "I died." The hand that had held his gun found its way to his stomach. "Sorry, kid."

"No," Sherlock said hoarsely. John couldn't believe a ghost could sound and smell so God-damned _amazing_. "And I won't ever let you, as long as I have anything to say about it."

John's vision was starting to blur and the periphery was growing brighter by the second. He could feel himself becoming clammy, and he knew what was coming. "That's nice," he heard himself say distantly. "If you're there when – and if – I wake up, we're going to have a _very_ long, _very_ uncomfortable talk."

And then the world went black.

* * *

John was only half-correct: the long, uncomfortable talk would happen the second time he woke up.

The first time was very brief. He heard voices. Two of them (Mrs. Hudson, Dr. Wilson – _when did she come to the flat?_) were castigating Sherlock very loudly, while Sherlock's own voice breathed, "John, John, John," over and over like a worshipful prayer. He could also feel Sherlock lying on the bed next to him, skinny arms wrapped around him, and one sharp cheekbone pressed directly over the pulse of his jugular vein.

John punched the Alpha with tremendous force, but blacked out again before he could determine where his fist had landed.


	6. Chapter 6

The first thing John noticed when he woke up for good was a strangely satisfying pain in the knuckles of his left hand. He opened his eyes and was immediately greeted with the sight of Sherlock Holmes' pale face and how dramatically the deep purples and puffiness of his brand new black eye clashed against his complexion. It was hard not to, considering it dominated John's vision.

They were on their sides, facing each other. Sherlock had rested his forehead against John's, his curly hair tickling the shorter man's hairline and making it itch and tickle slightly, albeit pleasantly. He had also pulled himself as close to John as he could manage with the slightly-undersized bump of their child between them, his thin arms wrapped tightly around John's shoulders.

They each stared into the other's eyes – or, rather, John stared into Sherlock's one good eye and Sherlock peered back without the benefit of depth perception. They breathed in unison, neither saying a word.

Finally, John broke the silence.

"Let go, we need to talk."

"Can't," Sherlock replied.

"Do you remember the talk we had about a year ago?" John asked. "About how 'can't' and 'won't' are different things."

"Of course I remember, John," Sherlock huffed. "And perhaps it's a combination of the two rather than just the flat 'can't'. Besides, the same applies to you."

At that moment, John realized that he had somehow failed to recognize that his own arms were wrapped around Sherlock's bony shoulders, his fists desperately clenched around the fabric of the Alpha's shirt. He tried to force himself to let go, but his hands seemed to only want to grasp tighter. "Ah," he said at length. "'Can't' it is, then."

They lay there in silence for a while longer before John asked, "The others?"

"Cleared out about fifteen minutes ago. Probably to give us privacy, so that we can discuss… matters."

"Matters," John said, somewhat hollowly. "Right."

He took a deep breath and continued, "We aren't okay."

Sherlock opened his mouth to respond, but John cut him off. "We aren't, Sherlock. Things can't just – just slip back into how they were before. Not easily. Not without work. If I just had trust issues before, what do you think I have now? Do you know what it's been like, having spent over half a year believing that the one good thing I had left could get snatched away at any moment?"

"Yes," Sherlock answered quietly. "It seems we've led astonishingly parallel lives the last few months."

John frowned. "What kind of justification is that for letting me believe you were _dead_ all this time?"

"The best," Sherlock said. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he relished John's scent and the peculiar emotions it stirred in him. "I've felt it ever since I stood atop St. Bart's, looking down at the centre of my world, also the centre of an assassin's crosshairs. And even though I made sure to identify and track down that particular would-be killer first, it wasn't enough for me to wonder every single day if another had stepped into his shoes."

John didn't want to challenge Sherlock's claim, partially because he could feel the sincerity in the words, but also because he had neither the energy nor the inclination to compare notes on who had had it worse. Just when he was content to let the issue slide, Sherlock surprised him.

"I'm not discounting what you've gone through the past few months, you know," Sherlock said. "Nor am I suggesting I've had a rougher time. My senses have been screaming at me over what I've missed since the moment I returned to the flat, and that alone is _deafening_. What it must be like for you, with much higher biological stakes."

"Just biologi- you know what, no, I'm going to take that as a weird statement of awed respect, even if that's not what you meant."

"How could it be taken as anything else? I thought I was very clear."

God help him, John laughed, even if it was weak and mostly took the form of a shake in his shoulders. He felt Sherlock's grip tighten around him, tilting their bodies slightly until John lay on his back with Sherlock partially splayed over him. "Do you hate me?" Sherlock asked, little more than a breath against his ear.

John rubbed Sherlock's back, marveling at the cool, smooth texture of his shirt, the jutting points of his shoulder blades, and above all else, the warmth of his skin. Warm and real and filling his head with wonderful dizziness and _alive_, dear God, he was _alive._

"No," he sighed. "God, no. Why would you ask something like that?"

"It was a calculated risk. I knew the odds of you hating me for doing what I did would be quite high, but I'd rather have you alive but loathing than dead but loving."

"Don't know if I could hate you, no matter what you did," John replied. After a moment, he added, "But don't you dare take that as a challenge."

Sherlock burrowed his face deeper against John's neck. "Then, are we okay now, John?"

"Not yet."

"_When?_"

"I don't know."

"I can still hold you, though, like this? Even if we aren't okay?"

"Sherlock Holmes, if you stop holding me before I tell you to stop, I will blacken your other eye before you even know what hit you. People will start calling you the world's only consulting raccoon."

"I do have a lot of very strong opinions on the proper way to rifle through rubbish," Sherlock replied with utmost seriousness.

"At midnight, knocking everything over with a godawful noise, and then hissing when people come to chase you off? Sounds about right."

It was as if a dam broke. It wasn't long until they were breathless, first from an uncontrollable fit of giggles, later from pairs of lips rasping promises and hopes and apologies and – simply, elegantly – merely each other's names as they pressed together.

* * *

Their mutual exhaustion (physical _and _emotional – if Sherlock had the gall to be skeptical about the line between sentiment and biological hard-wiring during such a reunion, he wisely kept it to himself for once) must have forced them to doze off at some point because John found himself coming awake thanks to two different stimuli.

The first: a bout of tapping and fluttering from within, the always welcome reminder that the baby was still alive. Yes, always welcome, even when it was awake at 2 a.m. and moving like it expected John to be as well.

The second: Sherlock Holmes' restless fingers tapping against his collar bone. They were nearly in time with the kicks.

_Not a dream. Really here. Alive._

It was a powerful thought. Beautiful. John basked in it for a moment before he allowed his eyes to open. He was still on his back, but Sherlock had shifted his position. He was reclining his side, one arm propping his chest up slightly while the other tapped away on John's clavicle. His eyes were focused on John's mouth.

"You know," John began with a smirk. "As romantic as pretty much every movie tries to paint it, waking up to find that someone's been watching you sleep is still a little creepy. Especially with the eye thing."

"Your fault about the eye thing," Sherlock grumbled, but there was no venom to his words. He continued watching John's lips for a moment before he continued, "It's moving. Your lips twitch when you feel it. More noticeable in sleep, but I can detect the tiny, subconscious flickers even now."

"Really? Huh," John replied, still with the little grin on his face. For a long beat, they continued to stare at each other with the only apparent change being an increased insistence to Sherlock's tapping. Eventually, John rolled his eyes, chuckled, and said, "Fine, go on, then. Oh, and I am impressed that you waited for permission, by the way."

Sherlock's only response was to spring up to a sitting position in an instant. He placed his pale hands on John's middle, spreading his long, thin fingers wide, as if to cover as much of it as possible. John watched Sherlock's pale grey eyes dart wildly, the same expression he used when countless facts spun madly in his head.

"Making deductions?"

Again, Sherlock didn't respond verbally. The bedsprings rocked and creaked as he rapidly changed positions again, working himself into a kneeling position on the bed. Keeping his hands on John's stomach, he gently rested his head against the swell there. John laughed at the baffled twitch in Sherlock's eyebrows.

"Hush," Sherlock mumbled. "You're skewing data."

John just laughed harder, but he could see frustration knotting up in Sherlock's shoulders and he took pity. He bit his lower lip, hoping it would be enough for Sherlock to proceed with whatever it was he was doing. Evidently it was, as the tension melted out of Sherlock's form after a few more moments of listening.

"I can hear its heartbeat. It's surreal. Yet, it can't be, can it? By definition, gestation has to be one of _the_ most real aspects of the universe, at least from a mammalian standpoint. It's… odd to be an active participant in hundreds of thousands of years of human reproduction instead of simply being a product of it." He was quiet for a few seconds before he continued, "You can speak again, by the way. I'm through gathering information for the time being."

"Says the man who still has his ear an inch away from my navel."

"I said I was finished gathering data, not that I had any intention of moving. Besides, I'm still trying to recover the lost files on this reproduction business. I'm mostly caught up; it's just the actual birth process that eludes me at present."

John blinked. "Sherlock, had you – had you _deleted_ where babies come from?"

Sherlock snorted. "Obviously."

"_When?_"

"Oh, long before we met. In fact, I only started working on recovering the information once we became flat mates. Everyone seemed to be making such a fuss about us being an Alpha and an Omega moving in together – "

"_I_ was one of those people!"

"Only for about twenty minutes. Honestly, John, that could hardly be called a protest. Where was I? Ah, yes, so I deduced I had deleted something which society had deemed important about that particular combination of individuals. Once I discovered it was a reproductive matter, I decided refreshing my knowledge on the subject would be wise, lest a baby just suddenly fall out from beneath your jumper completely uninvited."

"That… that really, really isn't how it works. At all."

"Well, clearly I know that _now_," Sherlock said with a huff.

John rolled his eyes, but it was more out of fondness than frustration. His hand found its way to Sherlock's thick black hair, where he attempted to thread his fingers through some of the curls. His hair was a bit longer than he normally kept it and without a haircut to beat it into something vaguely resembling submission, it had gone a bit feral. Idly, John wondered if he'd have to contend with two heads of the stuff once the baby came.

Naturally, Sherlock picked up on the thoughts immediately. "Dark colouring and curly texture are dominant genetic traits in hair, statistically speaking. Genetics are so unpredictable as to shoot straight through 'interesting' and land back into 'tedious' territory, but even I've managed not to delete that knowledge. In any case, there are decent odds that our son will have my hair."

John froze. "Son?" he asked, dazed.

"Oh, yes, no question." He sighed. "Unfortunately, I can't tell anything about its status as an Alpha, Beta, or Omega, and we must therefore fall back on probability. And yet again, infuriating unpredictability rears its ugly head, considering I come from a family devoid of Betas and you come from one dominated by them."

"We're having a boy?"

"Yes, John, do keep u- Oh. Were you hoping to keep it a surprise? Not good?"

"No," John breathed. "Ah, I mean, no about wanting to keep it a surprise. Well, I did, but it was mostly out of respect."

Sherlock frowned. "Respect for whom?"

John gave him a Look, the kind that could peel paint off the walls if it came down to it. "The dead."

"_Ah._" Sherlock paused. "Well, it should be fine if I spoil my own tribute. And on the subject of ruining others' plans, our son is already throwing a spanner into the works simply by getting a mismatched set in the chromosomal lottery."

"How so?"

"Did I ever tell you that Mummy always wanted Mycroft or me to provide her with a set of nine granddaughters and name them all after the Classical Muses?"

"No," John croaked.

"'No' in the sense that I didn't tell you, or 'no' –"

"No all around, Sherlock!"

* * *

In the end, the conversation did not drift toward the subject of baby names, as it probably should have. Instead, the brief discussion on Mummy Holmes and her fixation on Greek goddess granddaughters took a right turn into whether or not there were any decent Greek take-out places in the area, as John realized he could probably kill for even a passable spanakopita.

When the disappointingly soggy spanakopita they procured was long gone, they still didn't get back to names. Instead, John finally coaxed Sherlock into going into detail over what he'd been up to for the past few months. Knowing how far Sherlock had gone to dismantle Moriarty's web was astonishing, but John still couldn't help feeling the burn of resentment at being forced out of the loop.

The deep, gnawing, aching suspicion that others viewed him as an extra wheel – and a creaky one at that – had been part of his psychological makeup for years. Maybe it had always been there, the fallout of a background burdened by everything from turning out to be an Omega in an unprepared family to being raised in the shadow of an older sibling to growing up in a household where refusing to talk about problems meant they didn't exist.

So when Sherlock, easily the most important person in the world to John, chose to settle matters on his own without his assistance, it was difficult to keep the suspicions from rolling in. Things like lying and pretending to die in order to spare John's, Mrs. Hudson's, and Lestrade's lives sounded like "You'd have gotten in the way" given a fresh coat of paint.

Irrational, maybe. But almost impossible to shake.

Almost.

"I know what you're thinking," Sherlock said, fixing John with an icy stare.

"Oh, there's a first."

"I know that you're thinking," Sherlock insisted. "That I did what I did because you wouldn't be useful. That you'd get in the way. Daft, all of it, completely. _So stop thinking those things._"

John shrugged. "It's not as easy as just turning it off, Sherlock. I can't."

"Can't or won't?"

John gave him a long, measured look. Before he could decide if he was touched or if he wanted to chastise Sherlock for twisting his words to his own advantage, Sherlock continued, "I didn't finish."

The vagueness of that statement made John squint in confusion. "What are you talking about, Sherlock?"

"Wiping out Moriarty's web. I didn't finish it. Mycroft sent me an infuriatingly opaque but decidedly ominous message about you, and I couldn't stop myself from dropping everything and coming back prematurely."

"So… we're having a baby in less than three months and we're all in immediate mortal danger," John said, trying to keep his voice from rising to a shout. "Ta, Sherlock. Wonderful news."

"Not _immediate_," Sherlock groused. "I've been very careful to make it look like the vacuum in power has caused different threads in the web to turn on each other. I don't think the remainders have even pieced together that I'm still alive, although some may begin to have suspicions shortly."

"Are you almost at the encouraging part? Wait, is there an encouraging part at all?"

"_What I am trying to say_," Sherlock said insistently. "Is that I'm not done. Like I told you, the goal was to keep you out of harm's way by removing myself from your life – physically through a perceived death and emotionally through my admission of fraudulence. Obviously, that plan is now out. So, _we_ aren't done."

It took John a second to take it in. "We?"

"Of course. You know that I have always found your assistance valuable; those dusty, nay-saying corners of your brain can simply, as you might say, 'get stuffed'." Sherlock's eyes held John's for a long moment. "You're now smiling in a particularly luminous way. Wholly objective and quantifiable, anyone with even a drop of sense would agree with me. Does that mean we're okay now?"

John laughed. "We're better than the last time you asked, but I'll stop giving you straight answers if you keep asking me that. I'll tell you when we're okay." He grinned even wider at the irritated grunt Sherlock gave at that and continued, "And though I appreciate what you're offering, Sherlock, I'm on bed rest -"

"I'm not asking you to hop out of bed and fly with me to Siberia this instant, John," Sherlock said. "I'm certain there are no regulations against people in your circumstances merely discussing facts and logistics. Besides, bed rest doesn't last forever. As you said, less than three months until the big day."

As it happened, Sherlock was wrong. 'Less than three months' would actually be 'slightly over three weeks'.


	7. Chapter 7

Days turned to weeks and weeks into nearly a month, all seemingly in the blink of an eye.

Part of it could definitely be attributed to the revisions made to Dr. Wilson's bed rest prescription. One wholly maddening week into it, she had given John another check-up which, blessedly, had ended optimistically. Though she still wanted him resting the majority of the time, she granted him permission to be up and about, provided he was very careful about exerting himself. It was still difficult to put up with, but it was an absolute godsend in comparison to the boredom hell that was complete bed rest.

But, John knew, the greatest thing that impacted how quickly time sped by was the fact that Sherlock was back on Baker Street – back in his life. Gone were the days where hours felt like centuries, dragged down and stretched out thanks to a nasty combination of grief and fear of further loss. Those wounds were still fresh, still a little too raw when John thought about them too hard, but they weren't festering anymore. He was even healing, although perhaps "feeling a bit better about the whole drama, thanks" was a better way of putting it, since "healing" made him feel like he was back with his psychiatrist.

In any case, a Sherlock-infused life was a busy life, especially since Sherlock had not been exaggerating in the slightest when he'd said that John was now involved in the dismantling of Moriarty's web. Granted, he obviously hadn't been able to go ducking and weaving through criminal underworlds with Sherlock, but he'd assisted in other ways.

He'd helped Sherlock brainstorm, intentionally or otherwise. Once when they'd been poring over a difficult cypher, he'd simply mentioned having a craving for something salted and Sherlock lit up as if struck by lightning. He'd scribbled madly at the cypher, shouted something in Italian, kissed John deeply with no warning whatsoever, and left the room, yelling in Italian again. Two days later, he returned with half a pound of expensive-looking _prosciutto di Parma_ and the news that they didn't have to worry about any of Moriarty's Italian contacts anymore. He also reeked like he'd fallen into a vat of garlic.

John was still trying to make sense of any of it.

And even when Sherlock was out and about on such missions, he kept John updated. Perhaps a little too enthusiastically. The correspondence almost always devolved into something like this:

_Arrived in Dublin. Flight was postponed 30 minutes, hence the delay of this text. – S_

_WASN'T CONCERNED, BUT OKAY._

_And of course that's not including the actual flight-time, and the fascistic regulations they all have about using mobiles in the air. – S_

_I'VE ALREADY TRIED TO EXPLAIN HOW THAT CAN LITERALLY KILL YOU. NOT DOING IT AGAIN._

_A breakdown in communication is far more likely to get me killed than a mere plane falling from the sky. – S_

_I am about to buy an outrageously overpriced coffee. Considering odds of price-gouging baristas being part of the web. Add it to our notes. – S_

_John? – S_

_Ten minutes have gone by without a response. Still in the airport; I can return. – S_

_FOR FUCK'S SAKE, SHERLOCK, I WAS IN THE LOO._

_It's called a mobile for a reason. – S_

_NOPE. WORST RESPONSE. TURNING OFF PHONE._

And so on.

It didn't help that John's life was busy and stressful even discounting the continued campaign to wipe Moriarty's influence away and repair all the damaged records and reputations left in his wake. Simply put, he and Sherlock were woefully behind in practical baby preparation. The notion of baby-proofing the flat was so daunting, John wasn't sure if it was even possible. Nobody besides Sherlock Holmes – the textbook definition of a biased party – could possibly know what effect countless bizarre experiments had upon the very infrastructure of the flat, especially since said experiments tended to involve mold growth, putrefaction, or even just good old-fashioned acid exposure to disembodied human limbs. For all John knew, the floorboards might be sentient now.

Then there was the trouble of actually procuring things for the baby. With Sherlock still officially dead and John unable to leave the flat due to the risk to his physical safety and privacy, options were limited. Online shopping was an absolute godsend, but it had the drawback of feeling a little impersonal. Still, it wasn't like John had any valued traditional family baby heirlooms to pass on. Having come from a home where money was always a concern, a good portion of his toys and clothes had been Harry's androgynous leftovers, and he was fairly sure they'd all been donated to various jumble sales long ago.

So it was interesting, to say the least, when sentiment snuck into 221B wearing the impeccably practical mask of Mycroft Holmes.

He'd brought a bassinet. Or, specifically, he'd strolled in and gave directions while 'Anthea' carried it in. One only needed to glimpse it to realize it was antique. It was shaped out of dark wrought-iron, clearly the work of a master craftsman. A curled iron hook extended up from the head of the bassinet's base, and an ivory-tinted gauzy material hung from it, draped delicately over the bed portion. Although it was likely there for aesthetics, John couldn't help remembering the times he'd slept under mosquito netting while in the Army. He was also surprised to find that the bed was designed to rock from side to side, and that when he tested it, it did so smoothly. No rusted creaks or stuttering stickiness in the joints; it had been well taken care of over the years.

"Its first occupant died in 1930, at the ripe age of 71," Mycroft explained while John inspected the bassinet. "Our great-great-grandfather. I think the rest of the family resigned themselves to the notion that Sherlock would be the last of us to use it, but here we are. If any of them see that it's gone from storage before any proper announcements can be made, I'm sure there will be quite a bit of gossip."

John tried to thank Mycroft, but it was a bit difficult to hear with Sherlock speaking over him. "Oh, just spit out what you want, Mycroft," Sherlock growled from the sofa, where he had flopped on his side to sulk.

"Sherlock!" John chastised. "Can't something just be a nice gesture?"

"Not when it comes from him."

John rolled his eyes and started to apologize to Mycroft, but the older Alpha held up a hand to stop him. "In this particular case, my brother is correct." Sherlock scoffed. "I'm not just here to propagate family tradition."

"Like I said, 'spit it out'," Sherlock muttered.

Mycroft set his jaw and gave Sherlock a look that promised no room for complaint. "I think it's time you come forward and show the world you're alive."

"Are you _mad?_" Sherlock exclaimed, sitting up in a scramble. "There's still work to be done!"

"Only Sebastian Moran is left, Sherlock. You know that."

"Oh _only_ Sebastian Moran! Of course!" He grabbed his arm dramatically and continued, "It appears I've been bitten by a snake! No worries, though, it's _only_ a black mamba. I can just walk it off!" He glared viciously at Mycroft and continued, "I look forward to your new pest control service, wherein you remove the tails from all the rats you catch, give them fertility medication, and let them loose in the house again."

"Oh, multiple metaphors," John murmured, rubbing his back as he made for a place to sit. On his way, he lifted his laptop from the table and, upon sitting down, balanced it precariously on what remained of his lap. "He _is_ angry."

Mycroft soldiered on. "While it is true that Colonel Sebastian Moran cannot be underestimated, he has been completely off the radar for well over a year. There's been no sign of him whatsoever, Sherlock, well before this whole affair even began."

"Biding time," Sherlock grumbled. "Waiting for an ideal time to strike."

"Perhaps. But the fact remains that he vanished well before you ever aired any public suspicions about Moriarty's network. You made that accusation at the trial. The last activity anyone can attribute to Moran was a sniping assassination almost half a year before that. Something has driven him to inactivity and he has stayed there with absolute resolution."

While Sherlock irritably rambled out the many, many different ways that could be a trap, John tried to think about what could send Moran into such inactivity. Although John had never personally met Moran face-to-face (though he suspected he'd been the subject of his laser sights at least once), he found himself running through what facts he knew of Moriarty's right-hand man. Like himself, Moran was an Army man, skilled with weaponry, and gladly in the orbit of a brilliant sociopathic weirdo. At least John's weirdo was self-(and, John believed utterly, mis-)diagnosed as a sociopath; Moran's was infinitely more clear-cut.

With so many superficial similarities in their backgrounds, John felt weirdly qualified to wonder about Moran's motivations. He idly rubbed his stomach as he considered it. _What's more important than doing what he really loves, which in this case is murdering people from very far away? If it were me, what would drive me into hiding?_

His hand stilled. He felt the hairs on the back of his neck raise up in shocked realization.

_Not would. What __**has**__ driven me into hiding._

"Is he an Omega?" John asked in a rush, catching his laptop before his excitement could topple it over. In unison, Sherlock and Mycroft turned to look at him. John would have to tease Sherlock about their identical bemused expressions later. "Sebastian Moran. Is he an Omega?"

"We don't know. All of his records – educational, medical, Army – have been highly censored. Not even our best men have been able to recover most of his information," Mycroft said. "His reproductive abilities included."

"It's possible," Sherlock said. His eyes flicked about for a second as calculations ran in his head. "Unlikely, however. He was a Colonel, after all."

"Honestly, Sherlock, you _are_ aware you got a Captain up the duff," John barked. "Omegas have been allowed in the Army for nearly thirty years."

"And how many other Omega Captains did you know? Lieutenants?" Sherlock asked. When John's only response was a puzzled frown, Sherlock continued, "I thought so. While Omegas are _allowed_ in the Army, there are still definite promotion biases in favor of Betas and especially Alphas. I recall you complaining about such things at length."

"Yes, fine, that's true," John said. "But you said it yourself, it's possible for Moran to be an Omega. And that could explain his absence. He might not be biding his time for a perfect strike. And he might not be lying low just to save his own skin."

Sherlock stared at John, unblinking. "You think he's had a child."

"Maybe."

"Moriarty's."

"That'd be our luck."

Sherlock leapt from the sofa and began to pace. "Too many variables. Can't rule that idea out, but can't rule out an elaborate trap, either." He growled, fisting his hands in his thick hair. "I need more information!"

"So we force his hand," Mycroft said calmly. "You can't allow Moran to define how you will live the rest of your life. For you see, if you insist on leaving it to Moran to make the first move in this little Cold War, you are looking at a lifelong stalemate."

"He has a point," John said. He thought he heard Sherlock mutter something about said point being atop Mycroft's head, but he ignored it. "I've known a lot of snipers. They'll wait forever if they have to, Sherlock. Trying to out-wait a sniper is like trying to win a staring contest against a statue."

Sherlock grimaced, crossing his arms. He continued to pace for a few long moments, lost in an internal game of chess between himself and a hypothetical Sebastian Moran.

"Also, I just updated the blog with an entry that just says 'Big news coming soon'. And I know people are still checking the page out, since I've been getting dozens of messages a day about people believing in you recently. So. Y'know. You'd better do it," John said.

Sherlock turned to him, slack-jawed. "You didn't."

"Oh, I think I did."

"He did," 'Anthea' confirmed from the kitchen, where she'd been lurking while messing about on her phone.

"They'll think it's a hacker being clever."

"'Edit: definitely not a hack, I swear,'" John said slowly as he typed the words out with his index fingers. He clicked the track pad purposefully. "And sent."

"Conspiracy! Traitor!" Sherlock moaned. "Delete it."

"Nope. Already got a response." He closed the laptop and fixed Sherlock with a resolute stare. "Now, listen to me. I'm feeling cooped-up, physically drained, and I've had this awful nagging backache _all day_. Normally all that irritating pregnancy stuff is mitigated by being able to share the good bits with family and friends, but that's been really damned difficult thanks to our circumstances. Our circumstances which, though not 100% resolved, are at_ least_ a bit better for us now that people are willing to believe in you. So you are going to announce that you're alive, present all the evidence you've collected about Moriarty's web, and politely answer the questions you get asked. And then a week or two later, if things have calmed down a little, I can reveal why I won't be with you when you reveal all this. We outnumber Moran, and we can deal with him when and if it becomes necessary. Got it?"

Sherlock stared at him, wide-eyed.

"Mycroft, when can you make the arrangements for Sherlock to rise from the grave?" John asked, though his scrutiny was still fixed on Sherlock.

"Full preparations can be made within three hours. This includes everything from alerting all desired audiences to making a thorough sweep of the perimeter in the admittedly unlikely event Moran does somehow know what is happening and chooses to act."

"Good," John said with a nod. "Go on, then."

"Project Lazarus is go. Swiftest timetable. Make the calls," Mycroft called toward the kitchen. 'Anthea' sauntered out, dialing away.

John continued, "Sherlock, you've got three hours. You're not going out there in your boxers and dressing robe, so have a shower and get dressed. And then Mycroft probably has the best things for you to say written up already, so you're going to suck it up and go over them with him."

Sherlock continued to stare at John as if the rules of physics no longer applied around him. He opened his mouth a few times, clearly trying to formulate something to say, but nothing came.

"Did I stutter? March!" John ordered.

And, impressively, Sherlock did just that.

"Well done," Mycroft said once the bathroom door slammed shut. "You'll be a truly exceptional parent."

"Yeah, well," John mumbled, waving the compliment off. "Maybe it's a good thing I'm getting all this experience dealing with sulky, pig-headed types. Probably won't be thrown for a loop once the kid's a teenager." He glanced at Mycroft and frowned in confusion at the appraising look the older Alpha was giving him. "What is it?"

"Merely thinking that if you weren't already mated to my brother, I might not object to snagging you myself. Perhaps I should have tried harder to win you to my side when you first met Sherlock." Mycroft shrugged. "Idle thoughts."

Now it was John's turn to gape openly. After a moment, he cleared his throat and said, "Right. Well. Huh. Let's never get anywhere remotely near this topic again, shall we?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea what topic you may be referring to."

"Good. Um. Wise words." John set his laptop down and began the struggle to stand up. He groaned and rubbed at his back again once he was standing. "I am not going to miss what an ordeal it's become just to get out of chairs. I'm going to lie down for a bit; Dr. Wilson's disobedient patient sense is probably tingling like anything with me being out of bed so much today. Oh, and Mycroft?"

"Hm."

"If he makes a scene, feel free to kick him for me."

"I'll put my top men on it."

* * *

Three and a half hours later, John was lying in bed with a cool, slightly damp rag over his eyes and a hot water bottle under the small of his back. Mrs. Hudson had fetched them for him earlier, hoping they might ease the aches he'd been experiencing all day, but they'd had little impact.

He winced when he felt an especially powerful twinge, much stronger than the dull, low-level pain he'd been putting up with for hours. And then the water bottle ruptured, soaking his upper thighs. Irritated, he pulled the full, undamaged bottle out and...

It wasn't the water bottle.

It wasn't a backache.

And for a moment, the only thing that ran through John's head was, _Oh._

Without bothering to think things further, he grabbed his phone from the bedside table and immediately called Sherlock.

* * *

The announcement had started off calmly enough. Officials standing behind a podium in front of a very dignified curtain, showing how all of the different pockets of criminals were related. Proving that Jim Moriarty was that common thread. Presenting the evidence which had been trickling in that Richard Brook was an elaborate fraud: forged credentials, extravagant bribes, signs of file-tampering. A few of the journalists had contrite faces, but the majority displayed righteous indignation. Of course _they_ hadn't run with the story, heavens no; shame on their weaker, more easily-duped brethren for doing so.

Such short memories.

And then came the declaration that in order to fully expose the breadth of this deception, someone had to go further than any living man or woman could. The only perfect cover was death.

It took fifteen minutes for the crowd to quiet down once Sherlock stepped out from behind the curtain and walked up to the podium, pausing just long enough to have one of the government officials clip a microphone to his coat lapel.

Of course there were questions before the official Q&A period could begin. People confronted with such shocking news are rarely known for being reserved when it comes to shouting out what's on their minds.

Naturally, the first questions were variations on a theme: _How did you do it? – How long did it take? – How many, exactly, were there?_

The response to those was easy: "That will be explained in full detail once you all get these gut-reaction questions out of your collective systems. The proper Q&A will be much less muddied by such basic factual inquiries as a result."

_Why?_ required a bit more personal flair. "As the officials explained before my reappearance, I could not allow Moriarty to get away with conning the world. And then there was the fact that the most important people in my life were under mortal threat if I did not choose the course of action I did."

That was like catnip for the gossip-mongers. _Where __**is**__ Doctor Watson, anyway? – Trouble in paradise? – There are rumors that he's mated with a minor government official: confirm or deny?_

"Due to personal, private reasons, John is unable to attend today. But he sends his regards." A smirk. "Quite the opposite." A scowl. "Denied. Vehemently."

Finally, they seemed to be calming down. "Now, if you could hold your-" He managed to stop himself from saying 'inane'. John would be so proud of him. "Various questions until after I detail the process, we can get through this much more efficiently."

He was about halfway through his description on the size and global spread of Moriarty's web when he felt the vibration of his phone as it received a call. Because he had no shame in multitasking, he continued his explanation as he checked the call I.D.

John.

The rest of his sentence withered in his throat. "I have to take this call," he said. Still staring at the phone, he gestured vaguely to one of the government officials nearby. "Mr. Name I Didn't Bother Learning will be a fine substitute; listen to him until I'm done. It shouldn't take long. Ideally."

With that, he stepped away from the podium and turned his back to the crowd as he accepted the call.

He also completely neglected to remove or turn off his microphone.

Sherlock's voice was a hushed rush. "It's an emergency. You know where I am and what is happening – you practically masterminded it, after all – and now you've call me during it? Emergency. Clearly. What is happening and are you safe?"

The microphone picked up a slight murmur, but that was all. The crowd completely ignored Mr. Name Sherlock Didn't Bother Learning in favor of speculation.

Sherlock's voice was now slightly incredulous. "Your waters have broken?"

The crowd went deathly silent. Had Sherlock not had his back to the crowd, he would have seen every eye in the audience stare at him in shock and every mouth hang open in disbelief.

"Have Mrs. Hudson clean the glass and the spill up. What were you doing with multiple glasses of water, anyway, and how does this constitute an emergency call?" There was a brief pause. Another murmur. "What do you mean 'not that kind of water'? What kind, then?"

He was silent for another moment, and the murmur was insistent. Sherlock's back straightened noticeably, muscles going tight and his fingers clenching firmer around his phone. "That isn't possible," he said. His words were clipped. "It's supposed to go for forty weeks. Forty. You're only at thirty-three. That's seven less – seven! So- so clearly, it's something else and - _they can be born early?_"

He went quiet again. "Yes, I'll be there soon." At that, he finally turned back to the crowd and took in their expressions of shock. He glanced down at his lapel. Realization dawned on his face.

"Ah, one last thing before I hang up and proceed in your direction," Sherlock said. "I may have neglected to remove the microphone during this conversation."

As he lowered the phone past the microphone, it picked up John Watson's indignant voice. "You _WHAT?_ Sherlock – !" That was all before the call ended.

In the moment of shocked silence that followed, Sherlock saw a black car pull up at the kerb on the street opposite. Definitely one of Mycroft's. He scanned the crowd and noted the best possible trajectory to take to get him from where he was standing to that car.

And then he lit the powder keg.

"Well. My blogger has just informed me that we shall be parents within the next few hours. Therefore, rain check."

The crowd roared into action with flashing cameras and shouted questions, all while Sherlock Holmes ran like he'd never run before, dodging and weaving through the din. Things didn't die down even after Sherlock hopped into the car and sped away. A few of the clever ones who made it to their own vehicles tried to follow, only to meet with malfunctioning traffic lights that only seemed to break down after the getaway car passed by smoothly.

If Sherlock were in a less stressful position, he might turned back to watch as the last of the following cars were left in the dust. He might have even made a note to ask Mycroft if he'd lost a two or three ounces of weight. That was the closest he was going to get to a thank you for such a feat, after all.

As it was, he pressed his forehead against the tinted window and stared out, trying to calculate if he was being taken to Baker Street or to whichever hospital Dr. Wilson would have John taken to. Cataloging street signs, evaluating turns, and deducing meaning from different speeds should have been enough of a cool, logical filter to keep his less rational thoughts – _how is John how is the baby is it too soon it's too soon too soon __**too damn soon**_ – from overwhelming him.

Should have been.

It wasn't.


	8. Chapter 8

John heard Sherlock well before he actually saw him.

He was on his side on the hospital bed, trying to keep his mind on anything but the large needle about to enter his spine. Being a doctor himself, it wasn't that John was squeamish about such things. Rather, it symbolized something greater, something far more worrying than simple needle phobia:_ this is really happening and it cannot be stopped or delayed._ A heavy thought indeed.

So when he first heard Sherlock's deep voice calling his name desperately from somewhere outside his hospital room, he prayed to any deity, contract-happy demon, or wish-granting fairy who may exist and happen to be listening in for the anesthesiologist currently working on him to have steady fingers. As Sherlock's voice got closer, accompanied by the sounds of a minor scuffle and several irate voices trying to tell him off for making such a racket in such a sensitive ward, John heard the anesthesiologist chuckle.

"I think someone may be looking for you," he said dryly.

"Oh, no, I'm sure it's a coincidence," John replied, matching the tone. "John's a very common name, after all."

Fortunately, the anesthesiologist _did_ have very steady hands, as demonstrated when a loud knock sounded at the door the moment the needle smoothly entered John's spine. John winced, partially at the pain, but mostly at the knowledge that if he'd been in jumpier hands, he may well have been rendered paraplegic.

"Just finishing up! You can come in, provided you stay calm," the anesthesiologist called. John wasn't too sure if that was possible.

"Oh, believe me, I'll be seeing to _that._"

It was Dr. Wilson's annoyed voice. John stifled a surprised laugh as the door opened and she marched in, pulling Sherlock by his ear. Given that she, like John, was a good half foot shorter than Sherlock, it was quite a sight.

"I believe this belongs to you, Dr. Watson," she said, frowning at her reluctant charge. "I don't want to have to instate a leash law while he's here, but he started making such unbelievable noise the minute he got into the ward."

"Oh, we heard," the anesthesiologist replied as he removed the needle and carefully inspected the area of application.

"You!" Sherlock growled, pointing at the anesthesiologist. "What are you doing back there? What are you doing to John?" He cringed when Dr. Wilson gave a tug at his ear.

John rolled his eyes. "It's anesthesia to take a bit of the edge off, Sherlock. The less physical stress I'm in, the better, the way things are. It'll help me rest."

"Oh, please, that part is obvious. So, you're just giving in, then, Wilson?" Sherlock asked snidely, attempting to look at her. She released him and he straightened to his full height, rubbing his sore, red ear. "Just _giving up_, doctor?"

Dr. Wilson walked away from Sherlock purposefully, making her way to John's bed. She checked the anesthesiologist's work, nodded, and dismissed him. Sherlock briefly scowled at the anesthesiologist as he left, but quickly turned his wrath back to Dr. Wilson. "No response to my question, I see. Telling," he groused.

Dr. Wilson still didn't respond, choosing instead to help John lie on his back and prep him for an examination. She sanitized her hands, slipped on medical gloves, and began the exam, completely unfazed as Sherlock continued making sounds of disapproval. Even though Dr. Wilson looked as if she could go on ignoring him indefinitely, John finally had enough.

"Not good to antagonize the doctor who will be delivering our baby, Sherlock!" he snapped.

"And that is my point exactly! This is happening too soon, John. It's too early!"

"And what, then, do you propose we do? The labour's already well under way –"

"Well," Sherlock said, his shoulders tight and his hands flexing wildly at his sides. "_Stop it._"

"Would if I could, trust me," John grumbled, wincing as he felt another dull throb and trying not to think about what it would feel like without the anesthetic. "Not my choice."

"And at this point, there's not much in the way of options," Dr. Wilson answered. "Honestly, even if John had a lower threshold of pain and he came in before the waters ruptured, I doubt there'd be anything I could do. Now it's more dangerous to try to postpone delivery, since it's very easy for complications to arise or infection to set in."

Sherlock groaned and staggered dramatically to the wall opposite the hospital bed, where he sank to the floor, clutching his head in his hands. "Deliver now and the child is well over a month premature, higher probability of physical or mental disadvantage in comparison to full term births. Delay and risk not just the child's health, but John's as well," he muttered to himself. "Both unacceptable."

John sighed, relaxing his legs as Dr. Wilson finished the exam, removed her gloves, and moved away to make notes on his progress. "Look, Sherlock," he said, tiredly. "I'm scared too, but shutting down in the face of fear won't-"

"I am not _scared_," Sherlock interrupted. Maybe someone who didn't know Sherlock or who believed in Sherlock's sociopath claims might have believed him, but John could hear the small hitch in his voice. He removed his hands from his hair and hugged his knees closely to his chest. "I just despise no-win scenarios. I've had my fill of them. I am searching for a third option as we speak."

John gazed at Sherlock for a moment before he turned to Dr. Wilson with an expression that implored for advice. The aging doctor shrugged and said, "Believe it or not, this isn't the worst reaction I've seen an Alpha have in a delivery room. But it is pretty high on the list, I must admit."

John rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Oh God, please say this isn't in the top ten, at least."

"Top five, sorry. Mostly for terrorizing the ward before we were able to get him into the right room, mind you."

"Oh, of course."

Dr. Wilson smiled as she moved back to John's bed and gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Here's hoping he'll be more helpful soon," she said warmly. "If I had to estimate, I'd say you have at least another couple of hours before you'll be ready to deliver. But don't quote me on that. It could be sooner or much, much later."

John nodded. "I understand." He grinned a bit weakly. "Not really looking forward to living those hours, though."

"Just be glad that active first-time labours for Omegas average out to around nine hours. Betas have it far tougher than we do, honestly. They get to grapple with severely reduced fertility, and if one manages to get pregnant, the labour usually lasts well over a day."

"Wow," John said, raising his eyebrows in surprise. "I think I suddenly respect my parents a bit more now, even if they didn't quite know what to do with me."

Dr. Wilson chuckled. "Becoming a parent can do that to you a bit, yes. Epidural kicked in yet?"

"Starting to. It's really making a difference."

"Wonderful. You should try to get some rest while the pain is numbed, especially since Sherlock's actually being quiet for the time being. I'll have someone bring in a couple of guest chairs and see if we can coax him off the floor."

"Yeah, good luck with tha- hold on." John blinked in confusion. "A couple of chairs?"

"I'm sure you'll be having visitors, considering I generally like to keep preterm patients a bit longer than their more timely counterparts," Dr. Wilson answered. "Now, relax a bit. If anything comes up or you need anything, hit the page button straightaway. Otherwise, I'll be back in about an hour to check up on you."

John readily obliged, closing his eyes, taking a deep breath, and practically willing some of the tension out of his muscles.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, it felt like only seconds had passed. John knew that couldn't be true, however, as Sherlock sat in one of the promised guest chairs. He'd scooted the chair close to the hospital bed, close enough to slouch forward so his right arm rested on the mattress with his face hidden in the crook of his elbow. His left hand had sought out John's right, and he had laced their fingers together. John gave the hand a small squeeze, and Sherlock looked up immediately. He hadn't been asleep, then.

Sherlock's eyes were dry, but John's chest ached when he noticed that they were slightly red-rimmed. "Hey," John said in a tone that was a bit too wavering to be as uplifting as he'd hoped it would be. Trying to lighten the atmosphere, he added, "Found that third option?"

Sherlock's lips twitched in a tight frown.

"For the record, I'd much rather us be stuck together on the 'so this is happening now' option than try to get through this on my own while you plumb the depths of that big brain of yours for a potential solution."

"Pleased about my failure to solve the problem," Sherlock mumbled, looking as if he were gearing up for a world-class sulk.

"Don't be like that. This," John said, squeezing Sherlock's hand again. "Is infinitely more helpful than what you were doing before." He brought their joined hands up to his lips, where he breathed his next words over their knuckles. "Okay? So keep it up."

The bourgeoning pout faded from Sherlock's face, leaving his expression strangely blank. Or, perhaps, the rest of Sherlock's face merely seemed blank in comparison to his eyes, which pinned John with a contemplative and unblinking stare. They held the gaze for a long moment, saying more through a single look than any number of words could possibly express.

Then someone to John's left cleared their throat, and the moment shattered like the ashtray from Buckingham, which hadn't survived one of Sherlock's experiments involving sound waves (and incidentally, neither had nearly all of John's tea mugs).

"Jesus Christ!" John gasped, jolting in surprise and turning to the unexpected sound. "Fucking hell, Mycroft, how long have you been there?"

"Once again: language, John. I don't want my niece or –"

"Nephew. I've already deduced it. Keep up," Sherlock grumbled.

"- exposed to such vulgarity. It's indecorous."

"I'm the only one in labour here, so I'll swear as much as I please," John replied, trying to take in long, slow breaths to lower his heart rate. "And that doesn't answer my question at all!"

"He came in with the chairs," Sherlock stated, his voice dripping with venom. "Personally, I think he planned it that way because he can't bear the notion of standing for any period of time."

"I'll have you know I've had my hands full keeping abreast with all of today's media reactions," Mycroft said primly. "Congratulations. My assistant has informed me that you're the subject of two Twitter trends as we speak."

"Only two?" Sherlock wondered to nobody in particular. "Underperformance."

"What are they, then?" John asked.

"The first, #SherlockLives, is self-explanatory and mostly links to news reports covering the press conference. The other is #HolmesBabyNames, which is an exercise in ridiculousness."

John gave a brief mental prayer in the hopes that he wouldn't feel the need to kick himself later for succumbing to curiosity, but went ahead and asked, "What's the best one of that last one?"

"I'm ill equipped to make such an assessment," Mycroft said, waving a hand in dismissal. "However, the most popular example seems to be 'Auguste'."

"Ugh, _Dupin_," Sherlock hissed, as if the name itself were somehow inherently filthy. "A hack who can't even manage the woefully simple task of being non-fictional. Fools have compared me to that character for ages."

John gave a thoughtful 'hmm' and said, "Must be especially bad lately, what with that popular modernization on telly."

Somehow, Sherlock's naturally pale face managed to blanch even further. "No. You're joking. That doesn't exist."

"I've only seen 'The Purloined Laptop', but it was pretty good. Loads of chemistry between Dupin and his assistant; it's hard to believe they're supposed to be Betas."

The sound that Sherlock made in the back of his throat was not quite a sigh, not quite a moan, not quite a pained death rattle. What it was, however, was 100% melodrama. "Future generations plagued by Dupin. Our child will be born into a terrible world."

"So the world is terrible because a fictional amateur detective doesn't live up to your exacting standards and not because of, oh, little things like murder," John said. His expression turned thoughtful and he nodded. "Sounds about par for the course for you."

"Without murder, the world would be terrible _and_ dull. Instead it is both only some of the time," Sherlock explained.

John shook his head. "Right, so at the very least 'Auguste' is out. Fine by me; I don't even like it. But Sherlock, ruling that out is literally the only thing we've decided name-wise. And we are kind of on a deadline now. You seem pretty insistent that it's a boy –"

"Because he is."

"So do you have any suggestions, then?"

Sherlock didn't hesitate in the slightest: "Absalom."

"Absalom?"

Mycroft hummed in recognition. "After our grandfather, the Omega on Mummy's side," he explained. He folded his hands and continued, "I realize you come from Beta parents, John, and therefore have no practical experience growing up in a home with Alpha and Omega parents. But seeing as there are certain times wherein parenting becomes… let's say _challenging_…"

John closed his eyes and held his hands up in surrender. "Stop. Nope. No, no, no – do _not_ continue. I don't need to imagine your parents in heat, thanks."

"Nor did their children, hence the need for a regular caregiver who could mind us for days at a time."

"So, you were watched by your grandfather?" John asked Sherlock. "Really?"

"I have been told that this arrangement was one of the few things about my family which society would deem 'normal'. What makes it seem so peculiar to you?"

"Well, I suppose it's _because_ it's normal." John shrugged. "It's just that I always assumed you two were looked after by nannies and governesses, being so posh and all."

"Sherlock terrorized them mercilessly, and they usually ran off within days if not hours of being hired. The turnover rate was staggering," Mycroft stated. Sherlock tried to begin an argument over how fully justified he was and that he should have been lauded for providing such an invaluable service, but Mycroft cut him off. "Grandpapa Absalom was the only member of our family whom Sherlock wholeheartedly adored, possibly because of the shared pirate fixation. They were insufferable once they were on a roll."

John suddenly had the mental image of a toddler-aged Sherlock with a cardboard sword and poorly-placed eye patch and his elderly grandfather in an ostrich-plumed pirate hat ordering an irate preadolescent Mycroft to walk the plank. He laughed so hard he needed to wipe away tears. "Oh God," he said once the laughter finally began to die down. "That's the most adorable thing I've heard in ages."

Sherlock looked ready to sulk again.

"Unfortunately," Mycroft continued. "Grandpapa Absalom passed away when Sherlock was six. Even though our parents were past the point of being… inconvenienced… by biology by that time, they determined that I was old enough to look after him when they needed a break from his ways. Which was quite often."

"And it was all downhill from there," Sherlock said, frowning at Mycroft.

"Sherlock, look at me," John said firmly. He did, taking in the warm smile on John's face. "I like the name. Yeah, it's unusual and a bit cumbersome for a baby, but it's got character. And, more importantly, a good story attached. I think it'd be a brilliant name."

This seemed to smooth some of Sherlock's feathers that had been ruffled. "Of course it's a good suggestion, or else it wouldn't have come from me," he said, a smile forming on his own lips. "And now I can see that an idea for a second name has popped into your head. An acquaintance from the Army."

John gawked at him for a second. "That's right."

"A gleam appeared in your eyes when you mentioned attaching stories to names. Where have you acquired the most meaningful stories in your life? Family? Unlikely, not terribly close, mostly strained relations. Practicing medicine? More likely, but still not quite there. Our work together? Certainly, but as much as I am a show-off, I refuse to be our own child's namesake and I know you feel likewise. Now, the Army, with its powerful inter-personal bonds formed in the fires of mortal danger: ah, that's just right."

"I don't think I'll ever not be impressed by that, you know."

"Good, because I don't plan on stopping."

"I should warn you though," John said, looking away from Sherlock and his fingers worrying with the bedding. "My story isn't nearly as sweet as yours."

"Memorable stories from the Army rarely are," Sherlock stated. "Go ahead."

"Right," John said with a nod. He took in and released a deep breath and began, "When I was first promoted to Captain, it rankled a couple of Alphas who'd been passed over. They thought it an undeserved charity promotion even though, not to sound vain, I was much, much better at the job than they were. Anyway, they got into my supplies and messed with my medications, replacing my military-assigned suppressants with placebos."

Sherlock glared. "Idiots!" he hissed. "With so many Alphas about, they were tempting chaos. They didn't just want to ruin your career; they wanted to ruin _you_, in the most degrading way imaginable."

"And they would've gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for pesky Omega solidarity," John quipped in his best attempt at an American accent, which didn't deserve even being within five miles of the word 'best'. Sherlock and Mycroft gave him those identical puzzled expressions again, and he kicked himself for not knowing better. "Scooby-Doo? No? Wow, you two really didn't have childhoods. Just - never mind, just forget it."

He cleared his throat and resumed his story, "I meant what I said about Omega solidarity, though. I went into heat, and things would've ended disastrously if the only other Omega in my company didn't take such a powerful stand. Watched over me the whole time and single-handedly kept all the Alphas far enough away. Despite some of them being very, very insistent, from what I gathered. Once my head cleared, we investigated and discovered the plot."

"And now you want to give our child his name, in a token of gratitude."

"Half right," John said. "_Her_ first name was 'Melanie' and since you're so certain we're having a boy, I don't think it's a good fit. Her surname fits the bill, though. Wade."

"Was," Sherlock noted, grimly.

John sighed. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Four months after she prevented… all that. IED."

Sherlock nodded slowly. "Wade," he murmured, testing the sound out. "Wade Absalom. Absalom Wade."

"I like that second one," John said, smiling. "Absalom Wade Holmes, assuming you're right about it being a boy. What do you think?"

"How many times must I insist that assumptions are not necessary?" Sherlock asked. However, the irritation did not last long as he quietly said the name a few more times. He said it fast, said it slow, said it with drawn-out vowels and slight tweaks to the cadence. He savored how mere contortions of lips and tongue could form something so meaningful. "It's ideal."

John chuckled and brought a hand to his belly. "You've got a name! And with hours to spare, at that."

Only five minutes later, Dr. Wilson returned to give John another exam, which Sherlock wouldn't let her begin until he had chased Mycroft out of the room. When she finished, she made a rough estimate on how much longer it would be until the delivery.

She was off by only three minutes.

* * *

Time moves in mysterious ways.

Looking back, if someone told John that every temporal law (and even a few that would merely be theories for a few more decades) completely ceased to apply when one was in labour, his response would probably be, "Oh, well that explains all that, then." If he really thought about it, he'd agree with the famous words of a truly great man-shaped being: it really was all a big ball of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff.

Several hours of resting in short bursts, minutes of light half-conscious dozing or small pockets of dreamless sleep. Check-ups counting down to the inevitable. Sucking on ice to prevent dehydration, crunching on some of the cubes and feeling the cold trail of frozen splinters run down his throat. Feeling uncomfortable, mounting pressure, despite the absence of the regular, cramping pains – at least until the epidural began to wear off.

Hours felt like days, until suddenly Dr. Wilson was nodding, saying it was time, helping him get into position. Then it was as if the day had flown by in mere seconds, racing at a breakneck speed to this, the most important moment in his life.

"John, you're crushing my hand," Sherlock ground out through clenched teeth.

"Good!" John hissed. He gripped even tighter as another contraction hit. He panted through it. "Best news I've heard all day!"

"But I need this hand! Achieving full ambidexterity could take _days!_"

"Boo-" He took in short, quick breaths, following Dr. Wilson's breathing exercises. "_Fucking-_" He groaned as he bore down. "Hoo!"

"You're doing very well, John, keep it up," Dr. Wilson said, her voice slightly muffled by her medical mask. "I can see the head. Oh my, I think somebody may already have their daddy's hair."

"Really?" Sherlock asked. He craned his neck, trying to get a view despite the impossible angle. "I want to see." He winced as John gave his hand the most vicious squeeze yet.

"Oh, no you don't," John growled. "You stay put. No part of you is allowed anywhere below my waist until I bloody well say so!"

"But I'm curious, and the best way to understand how a process works is to actively observe!" Sherlock pouted at John's heated, absolutely-no-nonsense glare. "Fine, I'll just watch next time."

"_What_ next time?"

Dr. Wilson managed to interrupt the banter, urging John to focus and that they just needed one more push. And then, suddenly, as if all the pain and exhaustion and hand-crushing were a single grain of sand dropping in an hourglass, it was over.

Subjectively, it felt like an eternity passed for John as he begged anything and everything for the baby to be okay. He'd never be upset if it cried all night for months, if it took ages to get the hang of potty training, if it went through a nasty biting phase – _anything_, as long as it was alive and safe. In his desperation, he wasn't sure if he was saying these things aloud or not, but he could vaguely hear Sherlock murmuring similar sentiments under the breath he could not fully release.

In reality, that moment of soul-gripping dread only lasted about three seconds. Time moves in mysterious ways, after all.

Dr. Wilson announced that the baby was a boy, and Absalom Wade Holmes gave his recently-formed lungs a workout. The cry was the finest thing John had ever heard, and the relief and stark absence of pain that flooded through him was overwhelming. The stuttering breath he released was halfway between a laugh and a sob as the wailing newborn was wrapped in a towel and placed on his chest. Sherlock's hand, still clasped with his own, trembled.

"Oh my God," John breathed, gazing at the pink baby through tear-clouded eyes. His free hand instinctively moved up to cradle the little creature, and he smiled when Sherlock's hand joined his in a gentle exploration of the child. He laughed and glanced at Sherlock, "He really does have your hair."

Sherlock was silent, gazing at the baby as if he were memorizing every detail about him. Which, actually, was probably exactly what he was doing.

Dr. Wilson had finished overseeing the passing of the afterbirth, the cutting of the clamped umbilical cord, and cleanup. After sanitizing her hands, she pulled on a new, fresh pair of gloves. "Now comes the really tricky part," she murmured to herself.

She took a steadying breath and continued in a slow and soothing voice, "John, Sherlock, I need to take the baby for a little bit, okay?"

"Don't touch him," Sherlock rumbled dangerously. "He's ours; don't you dare touch him."

"Settle down," Dr. Wilson said calmly, holding her hands out in a placating gesture. "I know that your instincts are really strong right now, but I need to give him a proper check-up. You want to make sure he's healthy, right? And look, I'm wearing gloves, as are anyone else who might touch him. It won't be long at all and he won't smell like any of us when we get him back to you."

Sherlock and John each met the other's eyes, searching for approval. The hormones which were triggered to surge through their bodies by the birth of their child fogged their minds with instincts nearly as powerful as those brought on by heat. Their bodies were telling them to huddle close with their child between them, allowing the newborn to imprint on their scents. It was the crucial initial phase of forming the family bond.

But even with their bodies yearning to start that connection, they still had some rationality. They still had the knowledge that Absalom was premature and therefore susceptible to all kinds of unthinkable complications. Knowing the status of their son's health was worth the wait.

"Okay," John murmured.

Dr. Wilson smiled. "I promise he'll be even prettier when you see him next."

"Impossible," Sherlock whispered.

Dr. Wilson lifted the baby from John's chest. Absalom, who had just begun to quiet down, fussed and began to cry again as he was taken away to be cleaned and thoroughly checked. John fought the surge of adrenalin that urged him to get the baby back in his arms and shut his eyes tight. He felt Sherlock move, pressing closer to him and gently touching his forehead to John's sweaty temple. Neither tried to think about what it would be like if Absalom hadn't cried. What it would be like to clasp each other as they did now, waiting for a bonding that could never happen.

Fortunately, true to her word, Dr. Wilson returned quickly. Absalom had been cleaned and dressed, complete with a little cap over his puff of dark hair. "Seventeen inches long and four pounds, twelve ounces," she said as she deposited the baby in John's arms. "A teensy little thing, but about average for being as early as he is. No critical health problems that I could find, but he will need to stay in hospital for a while for monitoring as well as to meet a few milestones. For now, though, I think he'll be just fine for that bonding you two are so keen on."

She smiled at the new parents and tried to remind them about using the emergency call if anything happened, but chuckled as she noted that her words were mostly falling on deaf ears. John and Sherlock had already turned all of their attentions to the baby. Dr. Wilson saw herself out.

* * *

For quite some time, though neither John nor Sherlock were exactly sure how long, they hadn't needed words. They communicated with each other and with their son through touch and scent, far older languages than anything spoken. As with any newborn, Absalom's eyes wouldn't properly focus for months yet, so he would need to know his parents by scent and warmth – the earliest ways to assure him he was secure and having his needs met.

Sherlock was the first to reintroduce language to the equation. "John," he said quietly. They had held Absalom together for a while, but had now taken to taking turns holding him individually. The baby was asleep in Sherlock's arms, and he gazed down on his face.

"Hmm?"

"Will the parents of other children born here be able to see Absalom, or is it more private?"

John hummed in thought. "More private, I think. Why?"

"If they see him, they may realize their child is woefully inferior in comparison and try to make a switch. I refuse to raise anyone's dull changeling," Sherlock replied.

John laughed hard even though each 'ha' reminded him that he'd never felt as sore as this in his life. "Oh God, Sherlock," he finally managed to say, though he was still gasping. "I think – I think everybody feels that way about their baby."

"Perhaps," Sherlock said thoughtfully. "However, the difference is that I am right and they are wrong. Simple."

John grinned, but it gradually softened from one of jest to one of fondness as it sunk in that Sherlock was being 100% sincere. "Yeah," John eventually said. "Yeah, I think you're right in this case."

They sat in companionable silence for a little while longer, until a realization hit John. He winced and covered his eyes with his hand, mumbling, "Oh shi-… erm, darn."

"What is it?" Sherlock asked, concerned. "What's wrong? Are you in pain? I'll summon Dr. Wilson."

"No, no, that's not it," John said. He shook his head and ran his palm over his face in irritation. "It just hit me that I should _probably_ inform Harry that she's, y'know, an aunt. Hours after the fact."

"If the media is running with it to the extent Mycroft has implied, it's very likely that she's already pieced that together," Sherlock stated. "Unless, of course, her deduction skills are even worse than yours."

John smirked sarcastically, but otherwise ignored the comment. "Give me your phone. I lost track of mine on the way here. Probably with my clothes, but I don't know where those are, either."

"Coat pocket."

"In a hospital bed, Sherlock."

"Holding our baby, John."

"You're going to need to get used to moving him around so you can do other things," John began, but held up a hand when he saw a gleam in Sherlock's eye. "_Non-labwork things._ So position him so you're holding him with one arm, then give me the phone."

Slightly awkwardly, Sherlock maneuvered Absalom until the baby was entirely supported by his left arm. He froze for a moment when the child gave a small, sleepy grunt, but resumed when it became apparent that he wasn't going to wake. Carefully, he reached into the pocket and passed John the phone.

John murmured his thanks and thumbed in the password, but his plan to notify Harry stopped dead in its tracks when he saw that Sherlock had changed his mobile's background. During the bonding, John had drifted off to sleep with Absalom lying in such a way that the baby's head was cradled against his neck just over the clavicle. Sherlock had apparently taken a picture and set it as his new background. When John went to the mobile's photo folder, there were well over 30 similar pictures: John and Absalom, Absalom alone, John alone, and even a few Sherlock had tried to take of himself with the baby to limited camera angle success.

John had to blink to clear his vision and swallow a few times to clear the lump that had formed in his throat. "Sherlock," he said, his voice thick. "Do you remember a couple of weeks ago, when I said that I'd tell you when we were okay?"

Sherlock looked up at him, and John swore he saw guarded hope there. "I do."

John smiled. "We're okay."


	9. Chapter 9

John was discharged from the hospital two days after the birth, but Absalom's stay needed to be longer. Although he exhibited no signs of distressed breathing, anemia, or any of the most deeply serious problems which often came with preterm birth, he had a little trouble feeding and his low birth weight made it a bit difficult for him to keep a steady temperature on his own. Even with Dr. Wilson's confidence that the issues would resolve as he put on more weight and grew stronger, the brief times John and Sherlock spent away from him were still stressful.

Much to Sherlock's dismay, John had begun calling the baby 'Abby' less than twenty-four hours after his birth, and the name had stuck fast. What was even worse was that _Mycroft_ had picked up the habit as well. A disdain for nicknames was one of the previous few things Sherlock would admit he had in common with his brother, so it was somewhat jarring to see it go. But this sudden betrayal of ethics wasn't what irritated Sherlock. No, it was the smug, secretive look that crossed Mycroft's face every time he said 'Abby' that really vexed him. He just _knew_ it was something more than Mycroft goading him over a pet peeve.

It seemed to perplex John as well, to the point that he openly asked Mycroft about it a week after the baby's birth.

"You're right, John. I normally do dislike nicknames," Mycroft had replied with that infuriating little smirk Sherlock hated so much. "However, it would be quite hypocritical of me to dismiss this one. I proposed it, after all."

John's brows had knitted together in confusion for a moment, but then some terrifying revelation seemed to settle over him. His eyes went wide and he had stumbled into a chair, muttering strange things about initials the 'A.W.' and abandoned warehouses. Whenever Sherlock pressed him about it, he would rapidly change the subject.

But that was nothing compared to what had happened two weeks after the birth, when Dr. Wilson announced that Abby was far enough postnatal that a simple blood test would reveal if he was an Alpha, Beta, or Omega.

"Boys make it so difficult to tell just from looking," she had said. "Testing for certain genetic markers is really the only way to know until puberty hits. Some parents don't want to know for tradition's sake, since the practice has only been around for about a decade, but-"

"Oh, we're finding out," John said resolutely.

"I'm sure I can dedu-," Sherlock began.

"No. No, we are finding out. Right now. Because if it turns out he's an Omega, I can prepare him for what will happen as he gets older. He's not going to end up like me and get the shock of his life in the middle of rugby practice."

"Irrelevant. He's not going to play rugby at all," Sherlock groused.

"He will if he likes. Now, please, doctor – the test."

When the test results came in, Sherlock had despaired at the verdict: Omega. He repeated the word in surprise, clasped his head in his hands, and began to pace wildly. Irritated, John had asked if Sherlock was really that displeased that their son was an Omega.

"Yes, though not in the way you think," Sherlock replied. "God, John, don't you see? Teenaged Alphas are _monsters_, run ragged with endless vile thoughts! And our son will be the target of those thoughts!"

"Erm, I remember being a teenager. It's kind of a two-way street, Sherlock," John said. "Not just Alphas."

Sherlock ignored him and continued, "We are _doomed_ if Absalom has inherited your more alluring qualities. Just look at yourself, for example of how things will be for him! In school, you had at _least_ a dozen Alphas creating sick fantasies about you!"

"Okay, now I _know_ you're overreacting. That number is way off," John said, crossing his arms. Secretly, he was a bit chuffed over the rogue compliment hidden in Sherlock's fretting, but he couldn't let it distract him from Lecture Time. "It was only two, maybe three."

"Wrong! When you used Facebook, twelve of your former school 'chums'," Sherlock practically spat the word. "Would always _'like'_ your relationship status when it switched from 'In a Relationship' to 'Single'. You thought they were just having a tease, trying to cheer you up in their own boorish way, but no. No, oh no, no, they liked it because they thought if you crossed paths, they'd have a chance. And those were just the ones brazen enough to do such a thing! Who knows how many possessed a few more grains of tact but shared the opinion?"

John frowned. "How do you know about that? I deleted my Facebook page six months before we met."

"John, we have approximately fourteen years to find ideal places to dump the bodies," Sherlock said. Something flashed in his eyes and he continued, "Unless we make a comprehensive list of every Alpha who may meet Absalom and send them a preemptive warning. No, no, the former is easier, let's stick to that. Now, peat bogs may conceal bodies well, but they have a nasty preservation habit. Normally quite handy for my purposes, but in this particular case..."

"We are not killing Abby's eventual schoolmates! He's fifteen days old for fu- Pete's sake, just let him be a baby for a while. And also, _how did you access my deleted Facebook?_"

Quite the argument ensued, but John was mostly certain he had managed to convince Sherlock not to go to such lengths. He wasn't absolutely sure, though, so he filed it away as a subject that may need revisiting later on. Maybe something like, "Pass the butter, Sherlock, and stop thinking about how much arsenic you'd need to be effective against a teenaged Alpha's metabolism."

Finally, just under three weeks after the birth, Absalom was deemed thriving enough to leave the hospital. Fortunately, the media fervor over Sherlock's return had died down slightly over those intervening weeks. While there were a few paparazzi present at Baker Street, they were easy enough to handle, especially with Mrs. Hudson telling them all off for upsetting the baby by making such noise and using such bright, flashing lights.

And, at last, Sherlock and John began to settle into the ebb and flow of this new stage of their life together.

Three months passed in relative peace until the next wave of the Cold War hit.

* * *

All things considered, Absalom was a wonderful starter baby. If babies were capable of thoughts more complex than 'hungry now', 'lonely now', 'cold now', and 'dirty now', it would be easy to conclude that he felt a bit guilty for insisting on showing up so early and had decided to make it up by being as even-tempered as possible. He rarely cried or fussed when there was no reason to, and he was easily placated once his needs were addressed. He settled surprisingly quickly into solid sleeping patterns, and John was relieved to only have one sleepless creature in the flat again.

He was such an agreeable baby that John elected to return to part-time work at the surgery sooner than he'd predicted. Sherlock had protested strongly at first, bringing up every possible con he could think up, going down an increasingly elaborate and preposterous series of 'what-ifs'. John cut to the quick of the issue: Sherlock's overwhelming concern of failing in his duties as a parent if left alone with the baby. He had never even alluded to that as one of the cons, but John didn't need him to for him to _know_.

It took over a week of constant positive reinforcement to convince Sherlock that he was doing very well with Absalom and that even the most innately nurturing people needed practice and experience to be good with babies. That combined with the fact that Mrs. Hudson would gladly assist with Absalom's care if asked eventually helped push Sherlock into making peace with John's decision to return to work.

It was John's second week back at work when the incident occurred. Absalom was having a nap, and Sherlock took the opportunity to run a quick (non-lethal in any capacity) experiment on the relative drying speeds of earth moistened by different liquids. He'd just set the timer on the clod of dirt he'd saturated with a liter of orange juice (organic and pulp-in, very important) when a faint sound came from the baby monitor he'd brought with him into the kitchen.

He waited for a second to be sure, but the sound came again, a bit louder and more insistent. He listened closely, ear close to the speaker. "Whimper starting at E flat, rising to A flat. Bored and hungry, in that order. Right." He quickly prepared a bottle of formula and made his way up the steps to John's former bedroom, which they'd converted into the nursery.

"Papa is at his job today," he said as he opened the nursery door and headed for the bassinet. "So none of the good stuff until tonight, I'm afraid. This formula will have to do, even if you feel it pales in compar-"

Sherlock's jaw clamped shut as he looked down at his son. Absalom blinked John's dark blue eyes at him in happy recognition, smiling sloppily around the fist he had in his mouth. He cooed in time as his little legs kicked, knowing that he'd soon be picked up.

A red sniper's laser danced directly over the tuft of dark hair on the baby's right temple.

Sherlock turned around the room, eyes darting wildly and cataloging anything and everything. The window, not at all as he had left it. It was wide open. Some kind of paper lay on the sill, weighted down with a rock. He aligned himself so the laser sight hit his own torso (infinitely, _indescribably_ preferable to the alternative) and walked slowly and purposefully to the window. Absalom began to fuss louder over being ignored, but Sherlock could barely hear it over the ringing in his ears.

He made it to the window, removed the rock, and lifted the paper. It was a card. The front had the phrase "CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR BOUNCING BOY!" in a gold, elaborately curled font at the top with a cartoon of a flying stork carrying a smiling, blue-swaddled baby in its beak below.

With his hands trembling slightly, Sherlock opened the card. The inside contained a photograph and a few handwritten sentences (strong grip, one of the most precise and steady hands he'd ever seen).

**LET'S MAKE A DEAL: I WON'T KILL YOURS IF YOU DON'T GO SNIFFING AFTER ME AND MINE.**

**NOD IF YOU AGREE TO MY TERMS. SLOW AND DELIBERATE.**

**MORAN**

**P.S. HE HAS HIS EYES.**

Sherlock's gaze flicked to the photo. In it, a baby boy grinned at him with a mouth full of milk teeth. He had a shock of copper-tinted brown hair, and his eyes were obscured by a pair of dark sunglasses he was playing with. A cupcake adorned with purple frosting, rainbow sprinkles, and a single candle sat before him. A first birthday.

Sherlock lowered the photo slowly, allowing his eyes to take in the world outside the window. He looked everywhere, but couldn't pinpoint the exact trajectory of the laser on his chest. He released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and nodded. Once, twice. Slowly, so slowly.

"Deal," he croaked, the words coming out a sharp rasp over dry lips.

The laser was off in an instant. Sherlock slammed the window, which startled Absalom into actual sobs, and shut the blinds. Heart racing, he nearly fell over himself as he dashed back to the bassinet. He quickly yet carefully lifted the baby out, and cradled the infant's head as he pressed him close against his chest. He moved to a corner as far away from the window as possible, keeping his eyes trained on it. He breathed through his nose, harsh and heavy. With his back against the wall, he slid to the floor, rubbing the crying baby's back soothingly.

When John came home, he was greeted by a still-shaken Sherlock and a nursery window which had been bricked over.

* * *

Not long after the laser sight vanished from Sherlock's chest, a man walked down the street. He carried a guitar case, wore a pair of sunglasses, and walked with the confident stride of someone who knew first-hand that every CCTV in the area had been shot out with a silenced gun.

That's not what everybody else on the street saw, though. He was just a cool Omega musician with his sixteen month old baby strapped to his back, out for a leisurely stroll. Nothing odd about that. Charming, even.

"Want to go see the duckies at the park, Jamie?" Sebastian Moran asked.

Jamie laughed and clapped. "Duckies! Duckies!"

END

* * *

**END NOTES: **Thank you so much for reading and for any and all feedback! This is the end of the main story, but there are 3 epilogues. The first two are already completed and posted up on my account at AO3 (under the same name I have here), and I'll begin bringing them over tomorrow. I'm working on the final epilogue now and hope to finish it before I move across the world at the end of the month, but we'll see what happens. :I

Once again, thank you all.


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